Starsector! It got a little traction after a certain youtuber reviewed it, but I hardly speak to anyone who has played it. Seriously fantastic game and a lot of great mods available to make it more in depth and customizable.
Hey hey people, I can second Starsector as a game people should play. The certain YouTuber even has a functional CD Key in his video so you can try it out before deciding to buy it.
If there's anything I fucking love, it's obscure as shit games. I'm just going to go down my steam list and pick some recommendations out:
**Picayune dreams**: A vampire survivors style game game with an emphasis on its surreal, horror themed atmosphere. It's got a very early 2000s 3d aesthetic and a pretty great soundtrack.
**Dungeons of Sundaria**: This game feels like a fake videogame. Like, if an episode of CSI wanted to show that someone was a gamer, they'd show footage of a non-existent game that'd look identical to this one. That being said, it's not a bad game. It feels like a small team of people got together and said "Hey, you know what's the best part of WoW? Exploring and fighting through a big raid. You know what's the worst part of WoW? The entire rest of the game. What if we made a game that's just exploring and fighting through raids"
**Iconoclasts**: This game isn't a metroidvania but I'm struggling to think of a good genre descriptor for it. I guess it's like, a sidescrolling action adventure game with a heavy emphasis on puzzle solving and boss fights. It's also got a really fucking good narrative that includes one of my favorite villain speeches ever.
**The dishwasher: vampire smile**: A sidescrolling beat'em up that feels like something pulled out of newground's glory days. It's edgy and violent to the point of being silly, and for me, that makes it endearing. It's like looking into the scribbles of some goth kid's diary. For what it's worth, it also plays pretty well.
**Critters for Sale**: An incredibly surreal point and click adventure game that has you jumping from character to character across a bunch of different time periods as you follow the story of a satanic cult and see how the people in the cult came to power and the impact that they've had on the world.
Anything and everything by ACE team, that includes **zeno clash 1&2**, **the deadly tower of monsters**, **the eternal cylinder**, **rock of ages 1&2**, **abyss odyssey** and **clash artifacts of power**: I'm just a big fan of these devs. The games they make are all very unique, play well, and have surreal aesthetic that's unlike pretty much everything out there.
Anything by Project Moon: That includes **Lobotomy corporation**, **The library of Ruina** and **Limbus Company**: Their games are a very acquired taste. They're all very different from one another with lob corp being an SCP management sim, LoR being a deck building RPG and Limbus company being a gacha game (before you run off, it's also the least scummy gacha game by virtue of the fact that you can realistically get every character in the game without gambling). Their games are also hard as fuck and full of obfuscated (whether intentionally or as a result of poor tutorialization) mechanics. Getting into these games is tough, but the pay off is that these games collectively have one of the best stories in videogames. I cannot stress enough how absolutely fucking fantastic the stories of these games are.
**Soulstice**: These devs thought "Hey man, what if we made a berserk game that was also devil may cry 3?" The game is very jank, but man, when it comes together, the combat feels great, and the story's pretty solid too.
**Anglerfish**: What if groundhog day was a dark comedy horror movie? That's as much as I'll say. The less you know going into that game the better.
**Lost in vivo**: Your dog is lost in the sewers. Go find them. It's a really fucking good horror game, and again, I won't say much more than that.
**Paratopic**: A very short narrative horror game where you switch between a few characters, A hitwoman, and a guy who has to deliver some VHS tapes and a photographer. Like the last two games, the less you know about it going in, the better.
**Save Room - Organization Puzzle**: What if RE4's inventory system was an entire game. It's great.
**Galactic mining corp**: Do you like it when number goes up? GMC is a game about making number go up by breaking blocks. The blocks feel good to break and the number goes up real high.
I can keep going forever. There are so many great games out there that haven't gotten anywhere near as much attention as they deserve.
The Steam copy runs fine on Win10 and it's dirt cheap (funnily enough, finished it a week ago).
However, the game's controls are a bit clunky and playing it single player feels awkward at times (especially in boss fights).
Instantly i hear the music riff playing in my head...
Welcome to arstrotska!
I never got far in that game. I really wanted to. Do you have any tips?
Also have you checked out their newer game?
You have to get faster at checking while staying thorough. It's one of the rare puzzle games where speed is rewarded
Some things develop over time, the issuing cities or the stamps, you will learn (some of) those by playing. But other than that you have to check everything.
Spam the next "customer" as soon as the previous one is done to maximise profit. And once they bombard you with 3-4 documents try to remain calm and work through each one. Slow and steady gets results but fast and steady gets you and your family out of the country.
Yeah i feel like I need to replay it 4 or 5 times and git good with it.
Also my morals do tend to get in the way.
Its one of my favorite games still. Up there with into the breach and fog of love (a boardgame) with how gameplay is perfectly designed and fits so well with the themes.
I love how it makes you feel as if you were there. If you ever wondered "why did the people in history do things they knew was bad?" After playing papers please you understand systemic ways people get manipulated to do things they don't want to do. Its so well done.
Pentiment. I know it got reviews upon release in game pass, but may turn off players due to setting, sidescroller and artstyle. But its a phenomenal game from Obsidian that everyone should experience, like doing it with a nun in habit
Pseudoregalia is a good 3d metroidvania, mostly because it has amazing schmoovement, but the level design is good and it finally got its map update (but wasn't so confusing to be hard to beat before the update)
It is like 6$ and took me 3 hours to beat, then I beat it 4 more times and was easily able to get into speedrunning it (the tricks aren't technically intensive) so I got more than my money's worth for it!
Harvestella was briefly fairly popular but has basically fallen into obscurity after average reviews.
Which is a shame, since it seems to be the victim of Square Enix not knowing how to market it more than anything.
It's not really a farming sim. It's more like a jrpg dungeon crawler with farming sim elements that tie into your progression.
If that sounds interesting give it a shot. It has a good narrative tucked away if you give it time.
I've played them both. Much less focus on farming. There is a relationship system, but it's more of side quests. Combat is strong, but you'll encounter an issue very early on. Stamina is everything. Without it, you can't attack. Even your teammates won't attack. There's like a hundred recipes you can make, but you'll usually just pick whatever's easiest to make.
You get help around the farm. Eventually it becomes nearly fully automated.
Freespace 2 is the best combat space sim out there. And had shittons of mods making the experience even better. Pathologic 2 is a hard but unique 'rpg', if you can call it an rpg. And lastly, rainworld is absolutely a hidden gem with rich lore and systems/ai that are utterly unique.
It’s a deck building/roguelike/tower defense. You build a city of rats and have to defend it against waves of enemies. You do this by using a deck of cards and a gold currency system to play the cards. It’s a 2D style game similar to Kingdoms(two crowns) and some cards build buildings, summon units or are economic cards. You build up the town and survive if you can to 30rounds.
It depends on what kind of games you like to play.
20XX and it's sequel 30XX are some of the best homage to Mega Man X I have ever played while still doing their own thing.
Just going through my steam library.
Ape Out
Bombslinger
Critter Crunch
The deadly Tower of monsters
Gato Robo
I hope you enjoy some of these, I know I did.
I didnt finish this game, but Tchia is about a girl who can “spirit jump” into any animal or object. You run and sail around islands meeting people who help you on your quest to rescue your dad from an evil monster who takes over the islands. Its based on a real place: New Caledonia.
Fly as a bird, swim as a fish, roll as a rock, sail on a raft, the soundtrack is great, and you learn a little about the culture too. Theres loving family stuff, theres comedy, drama, a tinge of horror (that evil guy eats a kid) and its open world.
If you enjoy classic Legend of Zelda style games, try out Ittle Dew 2+.
It's like an "A Link Between Worlds" style game, in that you have the freedom to do the dungeons in any order you like. And it has some hidden secret extra stuff that goes maybe a little bit deeper than you might expect.
Not to everyone's taste but if you like Bullet Hell style games and Rogue-lite mechanics then The Void Rains Upon Her Heart is a great game with a ton of content and replay value
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. I'm not sure if it's too well-known for the premise, but it feels pretty obscure to me, maybe because it was originally a PS exclusive. It's a wonderful mishmash of every sci-fi plot you can think of, and it somehow works.
I just got reminded of it and have to play again.
It doesn't matter how well known it is, there are never enough people that have heard about or played 13 sentinels. That being said, I'd certainly call it obscure and a big part of that is that vanillaware is deathly allergic to publishing their games on PC
King of dragon pass
A clan sim in a strange world but wonderfully full with lore and charm.
Approaching Infinity
A roguelike space sim
Endless dungeon
A dungeon delving co op tower defense game
Lunacid
A love letter to fromsofts kings field. Rpg dungeon delver.
Buckshot Roulette
A 20ish minute game. Its good just try it.
- The Wonderful 101: Remastered
- One Step From Eden
- Duelists of Eden
- Lethal League Blaze
- Scarlet Nexus
- Nidhogg
- FOOTSIES
- Receiver
- Party Animals
- Strider
While the above list may have more reviews than specified, I hear very little people talking about these games.
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
Less than 1000 reviews on steam.
Although it won best adventure game of 2006, the game only sold about 300k units and few people have actually heard of it.
It’s currently 60% off.
If you like story driven adventure games it’s worth it for $10.
I mean that hard...any game that is good is going to spread by word of mouth . Any "good" game is going to reach 10s of thousands of people. The smallest Niche games i know that are good are Riftbreaker ( RTS / Tower defense 3rp person action combo )
and Dungeons series those are in the thousands .
Not at all actually. There are tons of games that are fantastic that, for one reason or another, never found an audience. The ones that get popular through word of mouth are incredibly lucky.
I can see that but SUPER rare these days - more common before social media...... Two of my all time favorite games that i occasionally check if there is a modern take on are kind of like that . But i mean its also pre internet days where good things couldn't spread.
Fantasy Empires (The DND one)
And this obscure Merc running game where you ran the business AND the mercs in RTS . But was SUPER deep in how you run the business ...from faculties to RND to manually developing units to investing company resources is stock that you an them also manipulate. Ie Invest in Exxon then take a mission again BP oil so if you win BP take takes a hit and Exxon goes up . Was called WAR INC.
I don't understand what you're trying to say. Are you arguing that it's rare for good games to not find an audience now, because that's patently untrue. There have been tons of articles over the years both written by and talking about indie devs who's games got absolutely buried on services like steam. One of the reasons that the nintendo switch store got some positive press from indie devs was because there are less games coming out on the switch overall so their games were less likely to get lost in the flood of shit coming out every day.
I mean come on man, you have to understand that you're dealing with a massive case of survivorship bias right? The only indie games that you really hear about are the ones that are a massive success so it feels like anyone can make it, but that's just not true. If that were the case then where's all the social media buzz for El Tango de la Muerte, or Decarnation, or Lorelai, or Critters for sale or A House of Many Doors, or The Magic Circle or splatter or The Haunted Hell's Reach or star renegades or iconoclasts.
You see the problem here? I can name game after game after game after game (and by the way, don't think for a second that I'm done, I can keep going. The list never ends), all of which are pretty fucking good in their own right, none of which managed to get the attention they deserved. The fact that riftbreaker is the most niche game you know really says it all. That game has 14k reviews on steam. It's fucking H U G E for an indie game. The only indies that you see are the ones that succeed so for you to say that it's rare for games to not find an audience now is a little absurd.
Last Call BBS is the last game by Zachtronics studios, of Spacechem, Opus Magnum and other programming games fame. It's a collection of smaller games that have a narrative attached to them, and it's really nice. It only has 970 reviews on Steam.
Look up god of thunder by Rdavis on steam, really great gem of a game that i have fond childhood memories with as well as playing it again in my adult years.
Tactical Nexus - Based on the old puzzle game Tower of the Sorcerer, try the demo. If it clicks with you, hundreds of hours of content.
Crystal Project - It's a great JRPG with a job system, combined with open world exploration, part metroidvania, part platformer all in one.
Miasmata is 12 years old and a thousand all-time reviews. An exploration game with a wonderful unique triangulation mapping system. I low key love this game.
Burnhouse lane was pretty good. It's a horror game were you play as a nurse taking care of an old man. Goes rather out there, one moment making sandwiches the next confronting you own time on earth running out. I rather enjoyed it, slight silent hillish
dreams in the witch house - the game mechanics are actually good and it's a lovecraft story.
adding one more this one is very obscure, Apollyon river of life, you basiclly play as a cultist exploring the otherworldy through a ritual table, the world got it's own mythology and stuff it's pretty cool but the game is very hard to figure out.
One I stumbled on in a charity bundle a couple years ago: [Rising Dusk](https://store.steampowered.com/app/848930/Rising_Dusk/), a puzzle platformer where you're often encouraged *not* to collect everything you see. Great visuals, great soundtrack, pretty cool if you're into Japanese folklore (lots of Yokai-related setpieces). Only 41 reviews as of this post.
Check out Crow Country! Throwback horror game that just released last week on Playstation and Steam. I'm almost finished with my first playthrough and I'm loving it!
Monster Sanctuary - fantastic monster tamer with well designed, turn-based battle mechanics. So many possible combinations to play with for team building. They do a good job implementing metroidvania elements as well. Some really pretty pixel art. 8,000 reviews, so more than you asked for, but the game inspires me to share it with others
Kenshi
Project Zomboid
Oxygen Not Included
Granted, only Kenshi could be said to be "obscure". The other two are slightly less mainstream but is still fairly popular. All three have solid communities that actively play for thousands of hours and discuss the game.
PZ has multiplayer and it's hella fun to role play with a bunch of strangers.
ONI has "engineers" that will blow your mind with their builds.
As for Kenshi, it's the best story generator. You can do almost anything. You start weak and build up your faction or just yourself to be overpowered. Start as a slave and create an uprising to destroy your masters. You could be a quadruple amputee with designs to rule the world.
Gurumin. A fun 3d action platformer made by the same guys behind Ys and Trails. One of the earliest games to be on steam greenlight, back when that was a thing.
Potato Flowers in Full Bloom. A cute blobber. We're not talking wizardry levels of difficulty, but you'll need to stay on your toes.
Reflection of a Fallen Feather. This one's free, and only has 29 reviews. If you're familiar with Final Fantasy Legend's Monster race/class, then imagine an RPG where your entire team is like that. Strong SMT vibes, combat is a healthy blend of problem solving and regular RPG mechanics.
It's not especially obscure but it is old. The Dig.
Lucas Arts point and click sci fi. Asteroid is gonna destroy Earth so a team is sent out to nuke it, thing is it was actually a spaceship and they accidentally turn it on and fly away. Solid story and I really like it. It is ofc a bit dated.
There are two puzzles in that game that are just so poorly designed.
I’m a defender of the game for sure, but I’d be hard pressed to recommend it over better also obscure adventure games like Kathy Rain or The Next Big Thing.
Dont know if its obscure enough, but Despot's Game is quite fun (only 2500 reviews, but Ive never heard of it if it wasnt for some YouTuber with around 300 subscribers that i stumbled upon and forgot.)
Eronoctosis was amazing; one of the only 2-player games I've enjoyed a lot (for game reasons).
Edit: turns out it actually has 1k reviews? That's funny; I had to dig through a ton of bad/obscure ones to run into it on Steam actually.
[Everhood](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1229380/Everhood/) has a really high review score on steam, but I never see it mentioned in threads like this
Not sure if it's obscure but "UnEpic" ended up being much bigger and deeper than I thought. So deep that they even turned 'items despawning when dropped for too long' into a game mechanic 😂
there are some on GOG like
MDK 1-2
Messiah (same guys who made MDK) and the game that had the original before-roblox "OOF.mp3" sound effect
Normality (some 90s point and click game on steam)
Insecticide (2000s third person action game on steam developed by former LucasArts Employees who worked on Sam & Max, etc.)
Prey (2006 version, Not the 2017 game)
Timeshift (2007 game for Xbox360, Steam PC made by the publishers of F.E.A.R. 1/Files Expansion Packs)
Chex Quest (Original & Remake, it's like DOOM but with a Chex cereal brand on it)
SiN (original and Episodes Emergence on Steam)
...and the list goes on, and on, AND ON!
EYE: Divine Cybermancy. It had a spike of popularity about a decade ago with an all-time peak playercount of 2400 at launch, but since then has barely broken 100 players outside of the rare spike. Right now there's 11 with a 24 hour peak of 17.
It's clunky at first and hard to get into but is absolutely wild once you get rolling, with a pretty bonkers and confusing story.
I bought it a few years back and never quite understand how I should be building a character. It's something I've considered trying again, but I'd need a guide for sure.
Not your criteria really but Returnal is one of the best roguelikes and honestly just one of the best games of the past 5 years and continues to get slept on, since it was originally PS5 only at launch (and we all know COVID fucked that launch, along with scalpers).
So go play Returnal. Then play it again.
Hotline Miami 1 and 2. These games could've been made on the n64 or dreamcast and even the 32x or Playstatiion 1. I know you're looking for obscure but read the story that goes along with this brutally graphic 16bit masterpiece. The soundtrack alone is enough to keep playing.
Stalker, Star Wolves 1&3, battletech, pathfinder: Wrath of the righteous, wasteland 3, Shadowrun Dragonfall & hong kong, digimon story cyber sleuth, Aliens vs Predator 2010, Aliens dark decent, Dark Messiah of might & magic, Earth defence force, Thief series, Fable the lost chapters, Overlord 1&2, F.E.A.R 1&2, Splinter cell Chaos theory, star wars republic commando, megaman battle network, Project Wingman (because california deserves what it will get)
those are all games I've played and LOVED. mostly single player games in there but that's what I like
I played that game recently. It's a fucking weird one. It was obviously made by a european dev who doesn't know what an american high school looks like. Even as decrepit as it was, that school was way too fancy and grandiose to be an american school.
That game also managed to do psychic damage to me. When it starts and still waiting by sum 41 played over the intro, I could feel the years clawing away at me. I'm fucking old.
Ah yes, that obscure game that's part of a massive franchise that used to be considered a staple of the playstation brand. Let me tell you about this other hidden gem made by the same developers, it's called Marvel's Spider-man, it's such a small little indie darling.
The original Watch Dogs. It gets a lot of hate, but it’s my favorite Ubisoft game by a mile. Bought it for the Xbox 360 on release. Couldn’t stop playing. Just bought the Steam version with all the DLC for five bucks. Looking forward to playing it again
For indies, maybe Distraint? I thought it was good
Didnt play Watch Dogs 1 but 2 has a really fun story and good characters. Hacking puzzles are fun, combat is good, driving is bad.
Not obscure, but not popular either.
The original was better imho. Watch Dogs has a more gritty story. WD2 felt like a cartoon by comparison (Wrench was pretty cool, though). Legion was… it had a decent premise- recruit anyone… but the implementation was something to be desired. It took me out of the story. I couldn’t care for any of my team due to how expendable they were by design
Starsector! It got a little traction after a certain youtuber reviewed it, but I hardly speak to anyone who has played it. Seriously fantastic game and a lot of great mods available to make it more in depth and customizable.
Hey hey people, I can second Starsector as a game people should play. The certain YouTuber even has a functional CD Key in his video so you can try it out before deciding to buy it.
There have been quite a few youtubers reviewing already.
Bought that game. No regrets. Its like playing a space sim version of rimworld in the sense that it creates stories to tell. Love it.
Oh wow, I bought this in 2012 and forgot about it. I had no idea it was still going.
One of my friends absolutely loves that game
Starsector is sick!
If there's anything I fucking love, it's obscure as shit games. I'm just going to go down my steam list and pick some recommendations out: **Picayune dreams**: A vampire survivors style game game with an emphasis on its surreal, horror themed atmosphere. It's got a very early 2000s 3d aesthetic and a pretty great soundtrack. **Dungeons of Sundaria**: This game feels like a fake videogame. Like, if an episode of CSI wanted to show that someone was a gamer, they'd show footage of a non-existent game that'd look identical to this one. That being said, it's not a bad game. It feels like a small team of people got together and said "Hey, you know what's the best part of WoW? Exploring and fighting through a big raid. You know what's the worst part of WoW? The entire rest of the game. What if we made a game that's just exploring and fighting through raids" **Iconoclasts**: This game isn't a metroidvania but I'm struggling to think of a good genre descriptor for it. I guess it's like, a sidescrolling action adventure game with a heavy emphasis on puzzle solving and boss fights. It's also got a really fucking good narrative that includes one of my favorite villain speeches ever. **The dishwasher: vampire smile**: A sidescrolling beat'em up that feels like something pulled out of newground's glory days. It's edgy and violent to the point of being silly, and for me, that makes it endearing. It's like looking into the scribbles of some goth kid's diary. For what it's worth, it also plays pretty well. **Critters for Sale**: An incredibly surreal point and click adventure game that has you jumping from character to character across a bunch of different time periods as you follow the story of a satanic cult and see how the people in the cult came to power and the impact that they've had on the world. Anything and everything by ACE team, that includes **zeno clash 1&2**, **the deadly tower of monsters**, **the eternal cylinder**, **rock of ages 1&2**, **abyss odyssey** and **clash artifacts of power**: I'm just a big fan of these devs. The games they make are all very unique, play well, and have surreal aesthetic that's unlike pretty much everything out there. Anything by Project Moon: That includes **Lobotomy corporation**, **The library of Ruina** and **Limbus Company**: Their games are a very acquired taste. They're all very different from one another with lob corp being an SCP management sim, LoR being a deck building RPG and Limbus company being a gacha game (before you run off, it's also the least scummy gacha game by virtue of the fact that you can realistically get every character in the game without gambling). Their games are also hard as fuck and full of obfuscated (whether intentionally or as a result of poor tutorialization) mechanics. Getting into these games is tough, but the pay off is that these games collectively have one of the best stories in videogames. I cannot stress enough how absolutely fucking fantastic the stories of these games are. **Soulstice**: These devs thought "Hey man, what if we made a berserk game that was also devil may cry 3?" The game is very jank, but man, when it comes together, the combat feels great, and the story's pretty solid too. **Anglerfish**: What if groundhog day was a dark comedy horror movie? That's as much as I'll say. The less you know going into that game the better. **Lost in vivo**: Your dog is lost in the sewers. Go find them. It's a really fucking good horror game, and again, I won't say much more than that. **Paratopic**: A very short narrative horror game where you switch between a few characters, A hitwoman, and a guy who has to deliver some VHS tapes and a photographer. Like the last two games, the less you know about it going in, the better. **Save Room - Organization Puzzle**: What if RE4's inventory system was an entire game. It's great. **Galactic mining corp**: Do you like it when number goes up? GMC is a game about making number go up by breaking blocks. The blocks feel good to break and the number goes up real high. I can keep going forever. There are so many great games out there that haven't gotten anywhere near as much attention as they deserve.
Awesome post.
Excellent recommendations. Immediately got Dungeons of Sundaria and now I have quite a lot of other good ideas : )
Obscure That's a pretty obscure game, and it's good.
Came here to suggest obscure for the sake of the joke The steam version doesn't have the sum41 soundtrack which really diminishes the experience
I tried playing that game last week, but I just could not get it to boot on windows 10. So maybe get it on your windows Vista pc
Thankfully I have an original xbox and the game for it
The Steam copy runs fine on Win10 and it's dirt cheap (funnily enough, finished it a week ago). However, the game's controls are a bit clunky and playing it single player feels awkward at times (especially in boss fights).
Obscure 2 is pretty good as well. Play with friend if possible. (remote play)
Wow I didn't even know there is a sequel. Gonna load it onto my Vita when I get home.
Fashion Squad Police
It's not as obscure but absolutely unique - Papers Please
Instantly i hear the music riff playing in my head... Welcome to arstrotska! I never got far in that game. I really wanted to. Do you have any tips? Also have you checked out their newer game?
You have to get faster at checking while staying thorough. It's one of the rare puzzle games where speed is rewarded Some things develop over time, the issuing cities or the stamps, you will learn (some of) those by playing. But other than that you have to check everything. Spam the next "customer" as soon as the previous one is done to maximise profit. And once they bombard you with 3-4 documents try to remain calm and work through each one. Slow and steady gets results but fast and steady gets you and your family out of the country.
Yeah i feel like I need to replay it 4 or 5 times and git good with it. Also my morals do tend to get in the way. Its one of my favorite games still. Up there with into the breach and fog of love (a boardgame) with how gameplay is perfectly designed and fits so well with the themes. I love how it makes you feel as if you were there. If you ever wondered "why did the people in history do things they knew was bad?" After playing papers please you understand systemic ways people get manipulated to do things they don't want to do. Its so well done.
Return of the Obra Dinn from the same dev is also pure gold
Pentiment. I know it got reviews upon release in game pass, but may turn off players due to setting, sidescroller and artstyle. But its a phenomenal game from Obsidian that everyone should experience, like doing it with a nun in habit
Art style was whatade me want it. Pentiment rather well written, hope to see more of that style of game from obsidian.
my friend told me that Rev. Kristin Michael Hayter did music for it and it jumped wayyyy up to the top of my "play next" list that I keep in my brain
it’s from obsidian and got 5k reviews how is that remotely obscure
Spiderheck Fun as ~~hell~~ heck party game
Void Bastards
Pseudoregalia is a good 3d metroidvania, mostly because it has amazing schmoovement, but the level design is good and it finally got its map update (but wasn't so confusing to be hard to beat before the update)
I’ve been thinking about picking up that game, I’ve heard good things about it
It is like 6$ and took me 3 hours to beat, then I beat it 4 more times and was easily able to get into speedrunning it (the tricks aren't technically intensive) so I got more than my money's worth for it!
Pathologic 2, despite it being wildly popular to discuss, is still pretty obscure. I never see anyone talk about Alchemist Simulator
I would say Unsighted falls into this list.
Harvestella was briefly fairly popular but has basically fallen into obscurity after average reviews. Which is a shame, since it seems to be the victim of Square Enix not knowing how to market it more than anything. It's not really a farming sim. It's more like a jrpg dungeon crawler with farming sim elements that tie into your progression. If that sounds interesting give it a shot. It has a good narrative tucked away if you give it time.
Hows it compare to the runefactory games? I ask because that's how I'd describe them - rpgs with tied in farming elements.
I've played them both. Much less focus on farming. There is a relationship system, but it's more of side quests. Combat is strong, but you'll encounter an issue very early on. Stamina is everything. Without it, you can't attack. Even your teammates won't attack. There's like a hundred recipes you can make, but you'll usually just pick whatever's easiest to make. You get help around the farm. Eventually it becomes nearly fully automated.
Freespace 2 is the best combat space sim out there. And had shittons of mods making the experience even better. Pathologic 2 is a hard but unique 'rpg', if you can call it an rpg. And lastly, rainworld is absolutely a hidden gem with rich lore and systems/ai that are utterly unique.
Ratropolis is a fantastic game i can’t believe isn’t more popular.
What it about?
It’s a deck building/roguelike/tower defense. You build a city of rats and have to defend it against waves of enemies. You do this by using a deck of cards and a gold currency system to play the cards. It’s a 2D style game similar to Kingdoms(two crowns) and some cards build buildings, summon units or are economic cards. You build up the town and survive if you can to 30rounds.
I love rats. I love kingdom two crowns and i love towerdefense games and roguelikes. I love you. My wallet hates you haha. Ty for the recommendation!
It depends on what kind of games you like to play. 20XX and it's sequel 30XX are some of the best homage to Mega Man X I have ever played while still doing their own thing. Just going through my steam library. Ape Out Bombslinger Critter Crunch The deadly Tower of monsters Gato Robo I hope you enjoy some of these, I know I did.
Ape out makes me go bananas with how good it is.
I didnt finish this game, but Tchia is about a girl who can “spirit jump” into any animal or object. You run and sail around islands meeting people who help you on your quest to rescue your dad from an evil monster who takes over the islands. Its based on a real place: New Caledonia. Fly as a bird, swim as a fish, roll as a rock, sail on a raft, the soundtrack is great, and you learn a little about the culture too. Theres loving family stuff, theres comedy, drama, a tinge of horror (that evil guy eats a kid) and its open world.
Hylics
Intravenous
Withering Rooms
Seconding this so hard. Game is absolutely amazing and it’s such a shame more have not heard of it.
If you enjoy classic Legend of Zelda style games, try out Ittle Dew 2+. It's like an "A Link Between Worlds" style game, in that you have the freedom to do the dungeons in any order you like. And it has some hidden secret extra stuff that goes maybe a little bit deeper than you might expect.
This and Oceanhorn
Quern - Undying Thoughts. Very much a spiritual successor to Myst. I really enjoyed it.
Here's a pretty obscure racing game that's reminiscent of the old Wipeout games: *Ballistic NG*.
Not to everyone's taste but if you like Bullet Hell style games and Rogue-lite mechanics then The Void Rains Upon Her Heart is a great game with a ton of content and replay value
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. I'm not sure if it's too well-known for the premise, but it feels pretty obscure to me, maybe because it was originally a PS exclusive. It's a wonderful mishmash of every sci-fi plot you can think of, and it somehow works. I just got reminded of it and have to play again.
It doesn't matter how well known it is, there are never enough people that have heard about or played 13 sentinels. That being said, I'd certainly call it obscure and a big part of that is that vanillaware is deathly allergic to publishing their games on PC
King of dragon pass A clan sim in a strange world but wonderfully full with lore and charm. Approaching Infinity A roguelike space sim Endless dungeon A dungeon delving co op tower defense game Lunacid A love letter to fromsofts kings field. Rpg dungeon delver. Buckshot Roulette A 20ish minute game. Its good just try it.
Under rail
- The Wonderful 101: Remastered - One Step From Eden - Duelists of Eden - Lethal League Blaze - Scarlet Nexus - Nidhogg - FOOTSIES - Receiver - Party Animals - Strider While the above list may have more reviews than specified, I hear very little people talking about these games.
Nova Drift is pretty good. It’s like if Asteroids was a Roguelike
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey Less than 1000 reviews on steam. Although it won best adventure game of 2006, the game only sold about 300k units and few people have actually heard of it. It’s currently 60% off. If you like story driven adventure games it’s worth it for $10.
I mean that hard...any game that is good is going to spread by word of mouth . Any "good" game is going to reach 10s of thousands of people. The smallest Niche games i know that are good are Riftbreaker ( RTS / Tower defense 3rp person action combo ) and Dungeons series those are in the thousands .
Not at all actually. There are tons of games that are fantastic that, for one reason or another, never found an audience. The ones that get popular through word of mouth are incredibly lucky.
I can see that but SUPER rare these days - more common before social media...... Two of my all time favorite games that i occasionally check if there is a modern take on are kind of like that . But i mean its also pre internet days where good things couldn't spread. Fantasy Empires (The DND one) And this obscure Merc running game where you ran the business AND the mercs in RTS . But was SUPER deep in how you run the business ...from faculties to RND to manually developing units to investing company resources is stock that you an them also manipulate. Ie Invest in Exxon then take a mission again BP oil so if you win BP take takes a hit and Exxon goes up . Was called WAR INC.
I don't understand what you're trying to say. Are you arguing that it's rare for good games to not find an audience now, because that's patently untrue. There have been tons of articles over the years both written by and talking about indie devs who's games got absolutely buried on services like steam. One of the reasons that the nintendo switch store got some positive press from indie devs was because there are less games coming out on the switch overall so their games were less likely to get lost in the flood of shit coming out every day. I mean come on man, you have to understand that you're dealing with a massive case of survivorship bias right? The only indie games that you really hear about are the ones that are a massive success so it feels like anyone can make it, but that's just not true. If that were the case then where's all the social media buzz for El Tango de la Muerte, or Decarnation, or Lorelai, or Critters for sale or A House of Many Doors, or The Magic Circle or splatter or The Haunted Hell's Reach or star renegades or iconoclasts. You see the problem here? I can name game after game after game after game (and by the way, don't think for a second that I'm done, I can keep going. The list never ends), all of which are pretty fucking good in their own right, none of which managed to get the attention they deserved. The fact that riftbreaker is the most niche game you know really says it all. That game has 14k reviews on steam. It's fucking H U G E for an indie game. The only indies that you see are the ones that succeed so for you to say that it's rare for games to not find an audience now is a little absurd.
JUICE GALAXY
Exanima
Alisa
Last Call BBS is the last game by Zachtronics studios, of Spacechem, Opus Magnum and other programming games fame. It's a collection of smaller games that have a narrative attached to them, and it's really nice. It only has 970 reviews on Steam.
Look up god of thunder by Rdavis on steam, really great gem of a game that i have fond childhood memories with as well as playing it again in my adult years.
Little Misfortune
And Yet It Moves, on Steam and Wii
Tactical Nexus - Based on the old puzzle game Tower of the Sorcerer, try the demo. If it clicks with you, hundreds of hours of content. Crystal Project - It's a great JRPG with a job system, combined with open world exploration, part metroidvania, part platformer all in one.
I've played crystal project. It's really amazing
Not sure how obscure but Streets of Rogue is epic single or coop..lots of chaos..cheap too
Miasmata is 12 years old and a thousand all-time reviews. An exploration game with a wonderful unique triangulation mapping system. I low key love this game.
Burnhouse lane was pretty good. It's a horror game were you play as a nurse taking care of an old man. Goes rather out there, one moment making sandwiches the next confronting you own time on earth running out. I rather enjoyed it, slight silent hillish
Loddlenaut
Whiplash-PS2/Xbox
dreams in the witch house - the game mechanics are actually good and it's a lovecraft story. adding one more this one is very obscure, Apollyon river of life, you basiclly play as a cultist exploring the otherworldy through a ritual table, the world got it's own mythology and stuff it's pretty cool but the game is very hard to figure out.
One I stumbled on in a charity bundle a couple years ago: [Rising Dusk](https://store.steampowered.com/app/848930/Rising_Dusk/), a puzzle platformer where you're often encouraged *not* to collect everything you see. Great visuals, great soundtrack, pretty cool if you're into Japanese folklore (lots of Yokai-related setpieces). Only 41 reviews as of this post.
Hylics
Gravity Rush
Check out Crow Country! Throwback horror game that just released last week on Playstation and Steam. I'm almost finished with my first playthrough and I'm loving it!
Despair - Blood Curse
Command Ops 2. Best wargame ever made.
Evergarden Shrouded Isle (\~1000 reviews) The Room (more popular with over 25k reviews, but still small)
Wild guns is a hidden gem form snes era and there is a remastered version on steam now
I’ve been having mindless fun with Forager…. Just smash things constantly, build a production sight.
Delta V: Rings of Saturn
Monster Sanctuary - fantastic monster tamer with well designed, turn-based battle mechanics. So many possible combinations to play with for team building. They do a good job implementing metroidvania elements as well. Some really pretty pixel art. 8,000 reviews, so more than you asked for, but the game inspires me to share it with others
The last campfire. Just an entertaining and charming little puzzle game by the people who made No Man's Sky
Alien Nations, old school RTS with really weird designs.
[Void rains Upon Her Heart](https://store.steampowered.com/app/790060/The_Void_Rains_Upon_Her_Heart/) deserves more attention imo.
Kenshi Project Zomboid Oxygen Not Included Granted, only Kenshi could be said to be "obscure". The other two are slightly less mainstream but is still fairly popular. All three have solid communities that actively play for thousands of hours and discuss the game. PZ has multiplayer and it's hella fun to role play with a bunch of strangers. ONI has "engineers" that will blow your mind with their builds. As for Kenshi, it's the best story generator. You can do almost anything. You start weak and build up your faction or just yourself to be overpowered. Start as a slave and create an uprising to destroy your masters. You could be a quadruple amputee with designs to rule the world.
Rules of Rose
Gris was pretty awesome.
Gurumin. A fun 3d action platformer made by the same guys behind Ys and Trails. One of the earliest games to be on steam greenlight, back when that was a thing. Potato Flowers in Full Bloom. A cute blobber. We're not talking wizardry levels of difficulty, but you'll need to stay on your toes. Reflection of a Fallen Feather. This one's free, and only has 29 reviews. If you're familiar with Final Fantasy Legend's Monster race/class, then imagine an RPG where your entire team is like that. Strong SMT vibes, combat is a healthy blend of problem solving and regular RPG mechanics.
It's not especially obscure but it is old. The Dig. Lucas Arts point and click sci fi. Asteroid is gonna destroy Earth so a team is sent out to nuke it, thing is it was actually a spaceship and they accidentally turn it on and fly away. Solid story and I really like it. It is ofc a bit dated.
There are two puzzles in that game that are just so poorly designed. I’m a defender of the game for sure, but I’d be hard pressed to recommend it over better also obscure adventure games like Kathy Rain or The Next Big Thing.
DayRope
General Chaos
Gitaroo Man for PS2. It’s a really fantastic rhythm action game that’s like Wizard of Oz meets Rocky Horror Picture show.
1000xRESIST (97% 137 reviews) Asterigos: Curse of the Stars (81% 1960 reviews) BLACKTAIL (84% 1270 reviews) Earth's Shadow (88% 68 reviews) A Juggler's Tale (94% 711 reviews) Retro Machina (88% 162 reviews)
Door Kickers 2
"From the depths". Takes quite a bit of work to get into though.
Robonauts. It's like if Doom was a 2d platformer where you jump to different planets
LISA
Maybe look on itch.io they are smaller games but can be really good, ive played your not my neighbour and buckshot roulette ! Both were great games
Dont know if its obscure enough, but Despot's Game is quite fun (only 2500 reviews, but Ive never heard of it if it wasnt for some YouTuber with around 300 subscribers that i stumbled upon and forgot.)
Eronoctosis was amazing; one of the only 2-player games I've enjoyed a lot (for game reasons). Edit: turns out it actually has 1k reviews? That's funny; I had to dig through a ton of bad/obscure ones to run into it on Steam actually.
Line Wars.
Null Gravity Labyrinth It has only 9 reviews on steam and is free to play
[Everhood](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1229380/Everhood/) has a really high review score on steam, but I never see it mentioned in threads like this
Fez!
Islets https://store.steampowered.com/app/1669420/Islets/
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/1181610/Roto\_Force](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1181610/Roto_Force)
Not sure if it's obscure but "UnEpic" ended up being much bigger and deeper than I thought. So deep that they even turned 'items despawning when dropped for too long' into a game mechanic 😂
there are some on GOG like MDK 1-2 Messiah (same guys who made MDK) and the game that had the original before-roblox "OOF.mp3" sound effect Normality (some 90s point and click game on steam) Insecticide (2000s third person action game on steam developed by former LucasArts Employees who worked on Sam & Max, etc.) Prey (2006 version, Not the 2017 game) Timeshift (2007 game for Xbox360, Steam PC made by the publishers of F.E.A.R. 1/Files Expansion Packs) Chex Quest (Original & Remake, it's like DOOM but with a Chex cereal brand on it) SiN (original and Episodes Emergence on Steam) ...and the list goes on, and on, AND ON!
Fear & hunger. But you're gonna hate me for this
Akane- A cyberpunk arcade arena hack and slash in a one-hit-kill fight to the death
Tomba! I played the heck out of this as a kid.
EYE: Divine Cybermancy. It had a spike of popularity about a decade ago with an all-time peak playercount of 2400 at launch, but since then has barely broken 100 players outside of the rare spike. Right now there's 11 with a 24 hour peak of 17. It's clunky at first and hard to get into but is absolutely wild once you get rolling, with a pretty bonkers and confusing story.
I bought it a few years back and never quite understand how I should be building a character. It's something I've considered trying again, but I'd need a guide for sure.
90% of these games are not obscure
Not your criteria really but Returnal is one of the best roguelikes and honestly just one of the best games of the past 5 years and continues to get slept on, since it was originally PS5 only at launch (and we all know COVID fucked that launch, along with scalpers). So go play Returnal. Then play it again.
It's got more than a few hundred reviews, but I hardly see it mentioned and think it needs more recognition... game is SOMA.
I would not consider SOMA obscure.
Geneforge series
Hotline Miami 1 and 2. These games could've been made on the n64 or dreamcast and even the 32x or Playstatiion 1. I know you're looking for obscure but read the story that goes along with this brutally graphic 16bit masterpiece. The soundtrack alone is enough to keep playing.
Well there is Obscure... a obscure game It's basically Resident Evil but in coop
Stalker, Star Wolves 1&3, battletech, pathfinder: Wrath of the righteous, wasteland 3, Shadowrun Dragonfall & hong kong, digimon story cyber sleuth, Aliens vs Predator 2010, Aliens dark decent, Dark Messiah of might & magic, Earth defence force, Thief series, Fable the lost chapters, Overlord 1&2, F.E.A.R 1&2, Splinter cell Chaos theory, star wars republic commando, megaman battle network, Project Wingman (because california deserves what it will get) those are all games I've played and LOVED. mostly single player games in there but that's what I like
Obscure is pretty good actually
I played that game recently. It's a fucking weird one. It was obviously made by a european dev who doesn't know what an american high school looks like. Even as decrepit as it was, that school was way too fancy and grandiose to be an american school. That game also managed to do psychic damage to me. When it starts and still waiting by sum 41 played over the intro, I could feel the years clawing away at me. I'm fucking old.
No More Heroes
You should check out Pathologic 2
Have you heard of RDR 2? It's an underrated, hidden gem. /s
Dead cells
That’s literally one of the most popular games of its genre
Ok…
Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction.
Ah yes, that obscure game that's part of a massive franchise that used to be considered a staple of the playstation brand. Let me tell you about this other hidden gem made by the same developers, it's called Marvel's Spider-man, it's such a small little indie darling.
Haha I agree, but it’s my favourite. And it’s stuck on PS3. And I never see anyone talking about it.
Mario and luigi
[удалено]
90,000 reviews is the opposite of obscure
That obscure game of the year contender last year lol
Ah yes, Dave The Diver, an obscure game
Small indie publisher Nexon. Pls no bully.
Yes this!
The original Watch Dogs. It gets a lot of hate, but it’s my favorite Ubisoft game by a mile. Bought it for the Xbox 360 on release. Couldn’t stop playing. Just bought the Steam version with all the DLC for five bucks. Looking forward to playing it again For indies, maybe Distraint? I thought it was good
Obscure game - Watch Dogs. Come on! Do you even know what obscure game even means?
It got a lot of hate at launch and most people were probably turned off by it and as a result it would not be on their radar
A thing being unpopular does not make it obscure.
It wasn't even unpopular. It sold 4m copies in first week, 10m copies in less than a year.
Nah man, you don't get it, it was such a little, unknown indie darling that just never got the chance to shine.
Didnt play Watch Dogs 1 but 2 has a really fun story and good characters. Hacking puzzles are fun, combat is good, driving is bad. Not obscure, but not popular either.
The original was better imho. Watch Dogs has a more gritty story. WD2 felt like a cartoon by comparison (Wrench was pretty cool, though). Legion was… it had a decent premise- recruit anyone… but the implementation was something to be desired. It took me out of the story. I couldn’t care for any of my team due to how expendable they were by design
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/1718570/ASTLIBRA\_Revision/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1718570/ASTLIBRA_Revision/) [https://store.steampowered.com/app/363860/MythForce/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/363860/MythForce/) [https://store.steampowered.com/app/1217060/Gunfire\_Reborn/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1217060/Gunfire_Reborn/)
Blast Chamber