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.

  • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    142
    arrow-down
    9
    ·
    4 months ago

    In Grotto, you play the role of a soothsayer living in a cave who is occasionally visited by members of a tribal society living nearby. They come to you with problems, and they want you to present your opinion, but you can’t speak. You have access to constellations of stars, which each hold different meanings, and you must present your answers in the form of a single constellation, which the petitioners are left to interpret.

    You’ll feel a bit of frustration as your intended message is missed completely in favor of something that the petitioner wanted to hear, and the same constellation might mean different things to different people, but that’s just part of the game. The story unfolds around you and its progression is communicated to you only through the explanations your petitioners give for their visit. Each is a uniquely unreliable narrator, so what you believe is for you to decide.

    Two endings, and an interesting story with some occasionally unexpected consequences that might make you feel bad, so if a game giving you a case of the sads is unappealing, maybe take that into consideration.

  • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    113
    arrow-down
    11
    ·
    4 months ago

    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.

      • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        4 months ago

        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.

        • Katana314@lemmy.worldOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          4 months ago

          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.

    • shrodes@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      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

      • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        4 months ago

        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!

  • Katana314@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    91
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    4 months ago

    Occult Crime Police is a fantastic free offering for those looking for a bit more Ace Attorney. It mostly follows the gameplay of Ace Attorney games, in which you investigate murder scenes involving strange, paranormal phenomena, and then discover contradictions in people’s witness accounts to uncover the culprit. It’s a bit easy, but maintains some great humor and charming animation production value.

      • Katana314@lemmy.worldOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        4 months ago

        Continuing this in the same thread as it’s a bit topical:

        Are you a fan of Love Live! School Idol? Me neither! I basically knew nothing about it at all. Regardless, Gyakuten Live is an incredibly detailed cutesy Ace Attorney style game, in which the characters of the show gather for “school trials”. Though you may need to put up with a cutesier all-girl cast, and the stakes are much lighter and involve things like stolen possessions rather than murder, the mysteries end up having a surprising number of twists and even some heartfelt motives at the end. Features a fully custom soundtrack and LOTS of custom artwork, matched with some traditionally silly Ace Attorney humor.

        So far, THREE cases are available, and each features a different prosecutor. The game’s page lists plans to continue up to 6 episodes.

        In ItchIO’s standard, the game is “name your own price” - so you can choose to download it for free. It’s unlikely to come to Steam since it technically infringes on an anime/manga without permission.

        One more coming if my AA recommendations are well received.

    • Katana314@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      Adding one more to the Ace Attorney spinoff block:

      Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane is a well-written fan spinoff of the AA formula, taking place in a fantasy universe where magic is real, but mostly the domain of the nobility. Trials are a form of theatre, where the nobility knows how to tip the scale, but your mentor knows how to tip them back.

      It introduces some very enjoyable mechanics, in which knowledge of each spell’s effects and conditions constitutes its own evidence. Tyrion bears his own magical ability that lets him view the thoughts of witnesses. He is also accompanied by the defendant of his first case, a mercenary-mage named Celeste, who gets a lot of investigation banter with Tyrion, much like Maya and Phoenix.

      Five cases in all, and none of them are shortened crapshoot cases, nor is there a downer ending; all the major threads conclude with satisfying endings, and the developer hopes to make a sequel from the world they’ve built.

      Oh, and as is common for AA games, take a listen to “Eye of Horus”, the game’s equivalent of the “Objection!” theme when Tyrion nails a contradiction. The game’s soundtrack as a whole has some real bangers, for both the high points and the emotional pulls.

  • DrowningInteger@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    85
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    4 months ago

    I don’t have any suggestions but I do like this prompt and I see a lot of games I’ve never heard of

    • Haru@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      21
      ·
      4 months ago

      I don’t either but this is such a great discussion. I’ve come across quite a few interesting sounding games here. Thanks OP.

  • ampersandrew@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    75
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    Magnetic By Nature is a 2D platformer where you are generally using either attract or repel mechanics. I came across this game on the PAX East show floor, and it really wowed me. I may be one of only a few hundred people who ever played it. There’s a bonus chapter, after the credits, that was kind of bullshit, but the 7 or so hours of gameplay before it was fun, challenging, and unique. Initially available for like $15, it’s now down to $1, and it’s a steal at that price.

  • SSTF@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    75
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    The Precursors.

    A first person scifi FPS-RPG. Developed in Ukraine. Very unique experience wrapped inside of a concept that’s been done before. High slavjank tolerance required.

  • pivot_root@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    78
    arrow-down
    13
    ·
    4 months ago

    Quest Master. Mario Maker meets Zelda dungeons, done well. It deserves way more attention than it’s currently getting, and it’s pretty fun with huge potential despite being early access.

    • shrodes@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      21
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      4 months ago

      This looks rad!

      On a similar note I Wanna Maker which is more or less Mario Maker but free and tonnes of developer created and user created levels to play through.

      • pivot_root@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        4 months ago

        Oh, that is great. I have fond (painful) memories of I Wanna be the Guy, and this seems right up my nostalgia alley.

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      4 months ago

      I like this stuff and I wanted to get either this or Super Dungeon Maker.

      But kinda hard to pick a side since they both look like they have overlapping small communities. And games like this, communities are the only reason to play.

  • Silverchase@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    63
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    4 months ago

    Moonlight Pulse (83 reviews)

    Metroidvania with character-switching

    This 2D platformer metroidvania has memorable characters and very cool worldbuilding. You switch between characters to match their abilities to the right situations. They live on a living, planet-sized creature and are fighting off the parasites that are slowly killing their creature-planet. You’ll swim through its blood vessels and explore its organs.

    It’s not super long—I finished the story in 9 hours. It’s just about the right length to satisfy.

  • Teddy@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    62
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    4 months ago

    Copy Editor: A RegEx Puzzle Game

    It’s a word-puzzle game that incrementally teaches you how to use Regular Expressions (RegEx) to find & replace text. Some of the puzzles add silly restraints for you to work around, and the game has charming NPC coworkers that introduce each challenge.

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      4 months ago

      Ah yes, a game that taunts me about my shitty regex-fu.

      After a decade, I don’t think I’ll ever remember how to regex without a cheat sheet.

    • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      4 months ago

      Never heard of it, and sounds awesome, regexes are the sort of things that need lots of practice to be good at, a game seems like a great way to keep the skill alive

  • tlo@infosec.pub
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    52
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    Cozy Space Survivors is a short (few hours) cozy survivor-like indie game with pixel graphics. A run is only ten minutes, so it works also for people with not too much time. It is developed by a single person and it is his first release.

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      4 months ago

      I’ve bought so many Survivor games and many are so bad.

      This one looks like it’s trying something unique. I’ll take it for a spin.

      • shrodes@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 months ago

        What are your picks of the genre?

        I’ve also tried a whole bunch, my favourite is probably Rogue: Genesia, I really like the challenges and metaprogression over some of the other titles I’ve tried

  • ampersandrew@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    56
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    4 months ago

    Cannon Brawl is a unique kind of RTS where it’s sort of like StarCraft meets Worms. You need to expand something like “the creep” from the Zerg in StarCraft in order to build, but you can also destroy the terrain under your opponent like in Worms. I kid you not when I say this has been one of my go-to local multiplayer games for a decade, and it rules.

    • Devorlon@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      4 months ago

      This is the first comment I’ve found talking about a game I’ve played. Had a lot of fun playing cannon brawl it feels wrong to downvote your comment.

  • shrodes@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    57
    arrow-down
    9
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    Tametsi

    Simple premise is basically Minesweeper, but all the puzzles are handcrafted with some neat designs and concepts that will stretch your puzzle solving to the limit. Also importantly, no guessing required to solve and it’s dirt cheap for the amount of hours of puzzles you get!

    • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      Piggybacking off of this comment, if you happen to enjoy Minesweeper, I recommend:

      14 Minesweeper Variants

      No guessing is required to solve any puzzle either, despite some variants seeming completely impossible.

      Fun fact: There’s an achievement for stumbling across a level with a conpletely empty starting board, without any spaces being revealed to be mines or non-mines. Yes, that can be solved without guessing.

      Fun fact 2: I’d argue there are more than 14 variants.

  • ampersandrew@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    52
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    4 months ago

    The Masterplan is a true heist game. You know that fantasy of playing out a heist from Heat? This is that game. It’s top down, and you control all of the members of the crew. You pick your time to initiate the heist, you hold up people at gunpoint, you prevent them from being a hero, and you try your best to get out with the best score that you can. It’s a real bummer that this team never got to make another game.

  • Jordan117@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    76
    arrow-down
    30
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    ECHO (2017)! It’s an indie game with AAA-feeling production quality from a tiny Danish studio that sadly went bankrupt after the game only sold a few thousand copies. I played it during lockdown on an old recommendation from MetaFilter and it has since become one of my favorite hidden gem titles.

    Trailer

    You play a bounty hunter named En (voiced by Game of Thrones star Rose Leslie) who wakes from hibernation when her spaceship arrives at a legendary artificial planet said to hold the secret to resurrection and eternal life. When she arrives on the surface, she soon discovers that its interior is a vast, abandoned baroque Palace, straight through to the core. As she wanders the infinite halls guided by her witheringly sarcastic AI London (voiced by Nicholas Boulton), she is surprised to find the Palace generates hostile clones of herself that hunt her down and copy her actions in a unique spin on the stealth genre. Gameplay consists of trying to navigate through various beautiful, byzantine concourses, collecting artifacts and unlocking elevators that lead deeper into the secret at the heart of the planet.

    You may or may not enjoy this based on how you feel about stealth games with minimalist combat, but for me the challenging adaptive gameplay combined with the evocative score, compelling voice acting, intriguing story, and gorgeous environmental/sound/UI design made this a really nice surprise. (And while the studio might be dead, I’m really hoping the plans to turn it into a movie eventually rise from development hell.)

    • kautau@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      4 months ago

      This is an incredible game I highly recommend, but I had to downvote because rules

    • waxy@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      4 months ago

      When a publisher goes bust, who gets the money from game sales after that point?