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.
similar game play to goose game, but your a penguin, trying to break into the research station and act like you belong for as long as possible. as you always wanted to be an academic.
your penguin might do things like choose recordings from a tape recorder to convince your “colleuges” in a conversation (they sound like the peanuts teacher though) that you are one of them. wearing cute costumes to blend in (lab coat, twead sweater, glasses, etc). if you are caught doing penguin things (waddling, eating raw fish, etc) you are kicked out as the lab has a strict no penguins policy.
if your duration in the lab exceeds the top x % on a weekly leader board you get accepted in to a school and the game moves to a school setting. except your penguin is competing with a mix of other penguins (other players) and actual students (npcs) to stay in the program. you can collect recordings in your recorder and change costumes. you can understand other peguins, but the actual students again sound garbled. if your likeability score gets low enough it is discovered youre a penguin and you get thrown out, as the school has a strict no peguin policy. you are released in the icy wasteland and you have to start your academic career over. if you last long enough in school you graduate the game gives you an nft which can be submitted on a website to verify, which you can brag about in the real world! you have an nft!
if you log in after this your Penguin is stuck in an office with students saying garbled things, you play your recorder, they always accept what you say as you have tenure. you can look out the windows at children playing. raising the question did your penguin really want to get in to academia, to be accepted, or something else…
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.
Quadrilateral cowboy.
first person cyberpunk logic puzzle game that tells a story without any words. Absolutely a blast and I wholeheartedly recommend it
Total Distortion is a point-and-click adventure that combines music video creation, business simulation, and surreal humor. Players build music videos, battle guitar monsters, and navigate a strange dimension, all in pursuit of earning $1 million.
Ah, I knew I’ve seen the title before. The game over music is perhaps more famous than the game.
But does just knowing the game over screen actually account for knowing the game?
Little Rocket Lab - fun factory builder with Stardew valley vibes
Hellkind short artsy horror themed top down walking sim
I found the game through a review recommending it to “Paper Mario” fans, but that video was so obscure I failed to ever find it again. The platforming is jank, the story compares unfavorably to another game with the same first 2 syllables, and the switch port is terrible with its load times. But I like the combat system, and while it starts fairly generic, each area becomes more and more visually intersting. Also we play as a silent protagonist, but they still gave them so much personality in the form of a hint system notebook, most devs would do hint systems as generically as possible to not confuse anyone, but I love them for not doing that.
A true flawed 7/10 game.
Project Gorgon or, as I like to call it, Project Gorgonzola. Its an indie MMO, but its possibly my favorite MMO and I play a lot of them. Its very unique feeling. Has a lot of jank, but also a lot of charm. Come play with me :3
Street Uni X is a really good action sports game of the Tony Hawk variety, but this time on a unicycle.
I learned a shitload about geography and culture from an old board game called “Globetrotters”.
Suzerain is an underappreciated, text-based, role-playing political simulator. I wish there were more games out there like it.
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!
After reading a good review I tested it with my horror-loving gf, but we found it kind of mid.
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
I’ve recommended this before, so it’s possible people will have heard of this from me, but Gateways by Smudged Cat Games is pretty great. It’s a puzzle platformer but it gets very, very complicated as you go on, especially once you unlock the ability to use all the different mechanics at once. It’s a pretty smooth learning curve up to that point, though.
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
Mega Knockdown a turn-based fighting game that successfully adapts the best part of fighting games: throwing rock four times in a row because you’ve gotten in their head well enough to know they’re gonna throw scissors four times in a row.
(note the above is an old clip, the placeholder frames have since been filled in)
Looks like a slower-paced YOMI
What a wild concept mashup! Great recommendation.
