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.
I thought of another one. This is an odd one, because I think the dev is actually quite well known: it’s Yahtzee Croshaw, formerly of Zero Punctuation and now of Fully Ramblomatic. He’s made a number of games over the years, but one that almost nobody ever mentions anymore is Poacher. (Note: link is to Archive.org rather than Steam; I don’t think the game is available on Steam.) I didn’t actually beat this one, as it ramps up quite a bit in difficulty as it goes on, but the basic controls and whatnot are very nice, and the humor is great. Here’s Wot Rock, Paper, Shotgun Thought about it, since it’s a bit of a faff to actually install at this point and Archive doesn’t offer reviews and whatnot.
Man, I played all the way through the 5 Days a Stranger trilogy but never heard of that one.
A game that holds a fantastically emotional spot in my heart is Jason Oda’s CONTINUE?9876543210. It has a mixed rating by the general public, but holds the very core of my faith.
At the start, a video game character dies, and is scheduled for deletion. Eventually, the garbage collector that filters through the computer’s RAM, deleting levels that have served their purpose, characters of memory damage and mangled speech, and reflections on what it it is to be dying, all deleted. The goal of the game is to find peace in the milliseconds of afterlife, however that happens.
we all fear deletion
those who were deleted
i took with me
their lightning, their prayerhttps://store.steampowered.com/app/263340/Continue9876543210/
(yes! I got a downvote! Someone else knows this game!)
9€??
I should reorient myself into "game"dev
Any idea why “This item is currently unavailable in your region”?
Because your region isn’t my region?
Thanks! I just wondered what could be in the game that triggers banning it in my region.
Could be a licensing thing. E.g. there are quite a few online Steam games that are not available in Europe, but are in North America.
The game’s been dead and without updates for a decade, so I’m not sure what’s going on.
It’s something I pass through about weekly though. It’s a good game to keep my head on my shoulders with.
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.
I have that, I should probably play it sometime
Maybe Ten Bells
Solo dev who was pretty sad that it had slow traction on release because he put so much work into the game. I can see it now has over 500 reviews, so perhaps he got the reaction he wanted!
I’m not familiar with anomaly horror as a genre, but it sounds like a very well-made game. I’m scared that I’d be too scared though
After reading a good review I tested it with my horror-loving gf, but we found it kind of mid.
A point and click in the same vein as There Is No Game by the same studio, that came out recently and that I haven’t seen people talk about at all, unfortunately already past its introductory offer
it’s on my wishlist, that jelly mechanic looks so silly :)
Ed-0: Zombie Uprising - A japanese 3rd Person Zombie Action Roguelike. It’s silly, it’s fun, it’s pretty hard sometimes!
I got this in a bundle, but it really seemed like it was just extra junk so I haven’t played it. The curious thing is, the other bundle items were gooner bait, which made me curious about implications.
no gooning in this one. it’s a bit janky, but the right kind of jank - feels like the type of game that was released in the later PS1, early PS2 era.
An Airport for Aliens Currently Run By Dogs
This is a delightful little indie game where you have to talk to stock photos of dogs and complete little unhinged quests. It’s been on gdq in the awful block with the dev before, but only 221 reviews as of now
Ex-Zodiac - retro star fox inspired rails shooter
funnily enough I only found out about this game from listening to +TEK
Street Uni X is a really good action sports game of the Tony Hawk variety, but this time on a unicycle.
Recursed is a very difficult puzzle game about recursion.
Downvoted as per the thread rules, but strong recommendation, and this reminds me I haven’t finished it.
It’s been on my wishlist, but I want to finish Patrick’s Parabox before I buy this one.
Here’s the link for other interested parties: https://store.steampowered.com/app/497780/Recursed/
Sword of the Necromancer : Resurrection.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2782880/Sword_of_the_Necromancer_Resurrection/
Best played co-op. Wonderful story with a great ending. Truly beautiful and solid game play. Short 12hr game to 100% complete.
Only like 150 reviews.
A short little puzzle platformer: Leap Year. To complete the game, collect all of the calendar pages scattered throughout the level. But beware, there’s fall damage. While your jump is two blocks high, you can only survive a one block fall. There’s more to it, but spoilers…
Esports Godfather is one hell of a genre soup: deckbuilder/autobattler/management game/single player MOBA? But trust me, it play way better than it sounds - at least if you’re into deckbuilders and management games. My only criticism was that it is a little too easy, but even given that it was easy to sink a lot of hours into it. It’s just fun making combos between heroes in battle, setting up the perfect deck through your players or engaging with all the million subsystems in the management mode side.
They did use AI art (supposedly trained on their own work) for the player portraits, so do with that what you will.
zero-k is very nice, opensource too. I think it started as mod for total annihilation or supreme commander and developed into its own thing.
I’m always curious what the differences are between this and balanced annihilation, they both seem very similar but BA feels a bit more polished
zero-k has terrain modification, which i havent seen on any other similar games. The units also have quite advanced ai, so less micromanagement. Though sometimes they get themselves in trouble but you can also setup retreat points for them.
