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.
Tinykin
I know you said less than 1,000 reviews but this is at 1,500 so I think it just squeaks by.This game for lack of a better description, adorable and over too soon.
Like a mashup of pikmim, Spyro 2, and Tony Hawk Pro Skater. It’s got lots of fun platforming and new puzzle mechanics in an ever adding open world that is a true joy to traverse and cute silly little side plots that make for rather grand set pieces when it all comes together. I got 100% in 12 hours but also collect-a-thons are my jam and I was plowing through the game with grin on my face for everything but the platinum time trials.
Martha Is Dead is a grim psychological triller about twin sisters, set in Italy at the end of WW2. It’s not about war, however. This game left me with deep emotions no other game could do. Heed the warnings given by authors, though. It may come too disturbing to some people.
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!
I really can’t handle the RPGMaker look of it.
I’m willing to give it a try though
It’s unfortunate that RPGMaker games have such a consistent and distinct aesthetic, it’s really obvious when a game was made with the engine, and a lot of the reviews mention it, too.
That said, this is definitely one of the best RPGMaker games I’ve played. They really stretch what’s possible with it. Can’t get away from that look, though.
I think the To the moon series hides the fact that it’s RPG Maker rather well
Definitely another great one!
The worst part is, there are certain ways a top down spritework game can look unique, and even put some personality on the characters. But the classic NES RPG look just seems so arcadey and wrong to me.
Sulphur Nimbus: Hel’s Elixir, a $6 (currently) game on itch.io. It started from the idea of an MLP fangame, but early in development evolved into an original setting.
This is a 3D physics platformer adventure with an unhindered flying character. Your hippogriff, Sulphur Nimbus, is an aerial photographer aboard a cargo ship, which is passing a mysterious atoll on the way to their destination. The crew want you to get pictures of the island, which has a castle that’s been abandoned for decades. Unfortunately, after flying over there, a nasty storm builds up and you get zapped by lightning. After a flashback tutorial on how to fly, you wake up on the island shores, your wing is injured, and you have to run to safety, finding out this place is dangerous… so dangerous a resident dogicorn (like a hippogriff, but it’s half dog and half unicorn instead of half bird half pony) has to rescue you when a lovecraftian horror tries to take you down into presumably Hel. Waking up in a castle room, your wing is healed, and you can fly again.
Now the game begins. Clear the boss monsters and rout them out of this island, area by area. Break the curse that binds you to this island. Find out what happened here.
What’s unique about Sulphur Nimbus is the movement. Running, fighting, and jumping has physics to it, allowing for some parkour stuff to be possible, like running up steep inclines and wall jumping. Flight is realistic. There are no arbitrary limitations, other than a regenerating “flap” stamina. If you can get enough speed to take off, and if there’s enough room to maneuver, you can fly. Level designs include lots of caves and enclosed spaces, but also lots of open areas, so being able to fly is a requirement to get through it, while also a challenge. While the game is designed for kb and mouse controls, honestly, a gamepad works very well with this game and is preferred. It also is cross platform, as it is made in java, and includes Windows, Mac, and Linux. The source code is on sourceforge and allows you to build the whole game yourself if you are so inclined.
There’s no other platforming adventure game that attempts this, and I have tried every “become birb” game out there. They all are either bird simulators or use flight as a fast travel, but not as a core gameplay mechanic like this.
Taiji (906 reviews)
Nonlinear discovery-based puzzles
If you liked the puzzle design of The Witness, you’ll enjoy Taiji as more of that but with scenic pixel art.
Instead of a linear sequence of tutorials and puzzles, Taiji is open-ended. You can wander wherever you want, solve the puzzles you stumble upon, and ultimately discover this place’s secrets. Sometimes you find a puzzle that you don’t understand, so you’ll just have to leave it for later, when you’ve learned more puzzle mechanics. It’s like a metroidvania but gated by knowledge instead of abilities.
All the puzzles are built on grids of tiles that you can turn on or off. There are no tutorials; you have to figure out the puzzle mechanics on your own, hinted by environmental details.
Rabbit and Steel - Cross between a bullet hell and roguelite with raid style gameplay. Requires very close co-ordination with your team to survive (up to 4 player co-op). Punishing but rewarding.
the GDQ playthrough of this game should be required watching, it’s beautiful and impressive
Had a great deal of fun with this one and it’s still getting updates!
Surprised to see the downvotes (by which I mean, I’m surprised so many people know this, I’d never heard of it at all).
“Roguelike co-op game requiring close coordination” seems like a mega-fail by concept since I tend to think of co-op games as more relaxed. But, looking at gameplay videos, it reminds me of FFXIV raid mechanics in a simplified game format. I can see how that would appeal to some people.
Bugvasion TD (9 reviews)
It’s a charming little tower defense game where you fight bugs with very fun abilities. I also play tested it so I may be a tad biased but I think it’s underated and fun :3
Dink Smallwood is an old fantasy role playing game. It has a small community that makes mods for it. It’s really dumb but it’s free to play and very short if you have nothing better to do.
edit: Wow! I didn’t realize a lot of people here know this game. That’s actually cool.
Dude I loved that game back in the day. So many great mods for it too
This was my Diablo. Indeed very dumb, but fun in a weird way. downvoted because I already played it though!
Damn, I remember that game being included as a bonus in an old magazine CD with lots of RPG Maker 2000 stuff
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.
Semi-Rogue-like RPG, flee away from the darkness on the leftside of the screen, try and defeat demonlord and save the world. (Multiple endings)
One of my favorite games ever, guy made his own engine.
It does have design flaws, don’t get me wrong. But this is is really novel and has enough content to get somewhat deep into it.
Eventually you start seeing the same things but for essentially a one man team it’s really impressive.
Minishoot Adventures is a twin stick shooter with a 2D Zelda-style map.
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.
HyperRogue has 352 reviews. It is a rogue like that is played on a hyperbolic plane rather than a euclidian one.
If you’re not familiar with hyperbolic geometry, don’t be fooled by the videos. It has the illusion of looking like it is on a sphere in many of the videos. It’s not! Also, you don’t need to be some master of hyperbolic geometry to play. I don’t really understand it but can still play the game well enough.
Essentially, imagine a hexagonal grid. Now, replace some of those hexagons with septagons (7 sided). The further away you get from a point there will be way more tiles in the hyperbolic grid than the euclidian.
The UI is pretty bad, the menus are pretty icky. Those are my only real complaints.
The game is charming. It has.a very retro feel to it. The music reminds me of something of hear from an old school point and click game or RuneScape. The graphics are minimal but charming.
The mechanics are easy enough. You get hit and you die. Most enemies die in one hit. There are no weapons or stats. It’s more like chess in a way. The game will also not let you accidentally move somewhere you’d die, so, yes, very much like chess with checkmates.
Because the game is so simplistic you can get into a flow state where you quickly move and attack enemies. It’s very satisfying to play.
Hyperbolic bonus: Hyperbolica, a first-person walking simulator set in a universe with hyperbolic geometry. You do odd jobs and play games that explore the strangeness of this geometry. Also, there’s a slight digression to explore spherical geometry as well.
A fun little 2000 era RTS with customisable mech chassis units/base building/multiple fighting levels per map (separate air/land/underground maps). In hindsight, it has a fiendishly difficult campaign which I remember it being a lot easier than I find it now…
Vangers is a postapocalyptic and fundamentally strange top-down driving/exploration/mystery/action-RPG.
It has a unique back story, hostile worlds and an intriguing and expansive vocabulary that helps tell the story. If you are the type of person that appreciates poetic neologisms because they get your brain going, guessing at the etymology and sucking up the layers of connotation, this is up your alley.
Even if you manage to complete the game, you’ll be left wondering whether what happened was even meant to happen. It’s sort of post modern with deconstructed words, rituals and behaviors all jumbled up and muddled together as a result of a great and important event that once had meaning to creatures that may no longer even exist.
