With the Steam sale running, this seems like a good time to try this thread again. We don’t often use the downvote button much in Lemmy, but the idea is this: Do your best to present game suggestions that no one has heard of before. If, in reading other people’s suggestions, you spot one that you’re familiar with, then put a downvote on it. Ideally, if the game is past a year old, it may have a discounted price during the Steam sale, and others will be able to check it out.
I’ve made this thread once before and it generated some good suggestions, but the rate of indie publishing on Steam has only accelerated with time, so it seems to be worth trying again.
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If On A Winter’s Night, Four Travelers - left my favourite for last, a free pixel art PnC horror adventure with beautiful graphics and great writing. I was so blown away that a game of such high quality was free, that I ended up buying the supporter pack :)
The Dweller - you are the eldritch monster hidden in the ruins, hunting down archaeologists, mechanically a puzzle-platformer (may have served as the inspiration for Carrion)
In Other Waters - a fairly unique exploration adventure with timed-puzzle elements and survival mechanics. The graphics are very stylised, so the experience is more like reading a book. I played about 5 hours and mostly enjoyed it, but did not finish it because the survival/timing pressure got too stressful as I progressed through the story.
Monster Loves You! - monster-raiser CYOA RPG with meaningful decisions
Message Quest - a silly little medieval PnC adventure with a stained-glass art style and a lazy squire as protagonist
Home - an atmospheric horror walking simulator with pixel graphics. I remember the story blew my mind when I played it a decade ago.
Cinders - a low-fantasy exploration of the story of Cinderella, as a non-anime visual novel with many decisions and endings
Not sure if this qualifies for the thread but on my phone, I’ve been playing Afterplace. It’s a Zelda-like designed for portrait playing. Great little time sink.
And my last post since I could recommend games for days xD.
Demonstar: Original Missions (1999 re-released in 2024 with some fine upgrades) not on sale but only 3 euros.
Supercow originally released in 2005 or something.
Re released: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1883570/Supercow/
What a great post idea, thanks OP!
My contribution is NeonXSZ, a 6DOF open-world ARPG by a solo dev. It’s been a decade since it released, but IIRC, the dev cited Quake and Diablo as primary inspirations and the game has a native Linux version.
Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor
You play as a poverty-level janitor at a bustling space port. Scrounge by while longing for a better life, seeing wonderous things that are beyond your class/wage level to experience! It sounds depressing, but this is a very charming game.
Cozy 3D platformer with no combat and tons of chill little dudes to talk to and help out.
Nonogram RPG. The story is nonexistent and the dialogue is laughably bad, but this is one of the better picross games I’ve played because the puzzles do actually look like stuff, and the completed puzzles even have animation! Plus the added elememt of combat gives puzzle solving a fresh twist.
I discovered totally by accident Proverbs.
Proverbs is a picross/minesweeper hybrid featuring a single ENORMOUS puzzle, inspired by Bruegel the Elder’s 1559 painting “Netherlandish Proverbs”.
In short, it’s minesweeper with a twist. It’s pretty relaxing, you can do it while listening to podcasts or YouTube. Also, what I like is that you never have to make hypotheses. Everything is solvable just by looking.
Try out Distance, a race game where you have to dodge objects. It also features a great soundtrack.
A game I like and I never see mentioned anywhere is Out of Space it’s similar to Overcooked except a lot less chaotic.
Downvoting per the rules but this game is great
