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.
Heaven’s Vault is a game about archaeology and translating a dead language. You explore a unique solar system and discover ruins, in which you uncover artifacts, and bits of text. Through context clues, you translate the passages to uncover the storyline. It’s not difficult, so if you’re looking for a puzzle, this won’t really do it for you, but it’s more of a narrative experience. If you aren’t sure about a word or phrase, you can give it a guess (based on assigning words from a collection of possible translations to specific symbols), and the game will remember that choice and let you slowly revise your translations as you find new text that rules out prior incorrect guesses. There’s an interconnected storyline with multiple paths to follow, and a very unique world - haven’t seen anything like it in other games.
The game has a NG+ mode wherein you start with all of your translations from the first playthrough intact, but, most of the bits of text are considerably longer and more involved, letting you use your prior knowledge to uncover more of the story and the lore of the world, which is also neat.
If you enjoyed it, you might also enjoy Chants of Sennar! It’s also about translating languages; it’s more puzzle-oriented and less story-based; there’s a story to uncover, but it’s not as clear-cut and narrative driven. Still a great game, however!
…well I feel really bad about downvoting this one, because it’s a really good suggestion
Agreed. However, I believe it was included in a Humble Choice bundle at one point, so it may not be quite as obscure as what the OP is looking for.
Avorion - In which you command and build a spaceship designed by yourself (or others on the internet). Soon you have AIs you command and space stations you own. The game allows you to lean as much or as little as you want into the fleet command and economy aspects. If you want, you can just pilot one big-ass ship and do it all alone.
HyperRogue has 352 reviews. It is a rogue like that is played on a hyperbolic plane rather than a euclidian one.
If you’re not familiar with hyperbolic geometry, don’t be fooled by the videos. It has the illusion of looking like it is on a sphere in many of the videos. It’s not! Also, you don’t need to be some master of hyperbolic geometry to play. I don’t really understand it but can still play the game well enough.
Essentially, imagine a hexagonal grid. Now, replace some of those hexagons with septagons (7 sided). The further away you get from a point there will be way more tiles in the hyperbolic grid than the euclidian.
The UI is pretty bad, the menus are pretty icky. Those are my only real complaints.
The game is charming. It has.a very retro feel to it. The music reminds me of something of hear from an old school point and click game or RuneScape. The graphics are minimal but charming.
The mechanics are easy enough. You get hit and you die. Most enemies die in one hit. There are no weapons or stats. It’s more like chess in a way. The game will also not let you accidentally move somewhere you’d die, so, yes, very much like chess with checkmates.
Because the game is so simplistic you can get into a flow state where you quickly move and attack enemies. It’s very satisfying to play.
Hyperbolic bonus: Hyperbolica, a first-person walking simulator set in a universe with hyperbolic geometry. You do odd jobs and play games that explore the strangeness of this geometry. Also, there’s a slight digression to explore spherical geometry as well.
Voices of the Void a free (likely while it’s in pre-alpha) light simulational game about receiving outer space signals and recording them to sell. You use the currency to clean up, upgrade, and decorate your small facility while moving around the Swiss forest valley you’re in to repair and upkeep the satellite dishes that make the operation function.
It sounds very purely simulational, but there are a lot of secrets and interesting signals that are more than signals. It’s also an Unreal engine game, but features a lot of Source engine love, for example the art style is reminiscent of Half-Life 1, all of the sound effects are EXTREMELY Source game nostalgic, and there’s crouch jumping.
Dink Smallwood is an old fantasy role playing game. It has a small community that makes mods for it. It’s really dumb but it’s free to play and very short if you have nothing better to do.
edit: Wow! I didn’t realize a lot of people here know this game. That’s actually cool.
