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.
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.
This is SOLID GOLD holy shit
edit: OKAY I FINISHED THE FIRST CASE ABSOLUTELY PLAY THIS
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.
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.
Martha Is Dead is a grim psychological triller about twin sisters, set in Italy at the end of WW2. It’s not about war, however. This game left me with deep emotions no other game could do. Heed the warnings given by authors, though. It may come too disturbing to some people.
Not a pc game but rather on mobile. It’s a really solid fantasy CYOA game and (if you wanted to) play through the next set of story chapters completely for free as long as you meet the achievement requirements. Barring that, buying books (as the game calls it) has a rather fair price. Unfortunately the game is incomplete as the solo developer has sadly passed away, but what is here is great with a decent length since there’s been years of book chapters. Genuinely a hidden gem that I discovered on a whim back early in highschool, and it’s sad that I won’t be able to see the end they envisioned, so with that in mind I’ll be replaying this game again in the near future.
Oh no, the author passed away? I remember enjoying this and wanting to check back later when it was more finished.
The whole things just a massive labor of love from a relatively small indy studio. At one point it was an RPG Maker game that was delightfully well polished in terms of story, art, and environment. After the devs got tired to rpg maker limitations, they ported the whole thing to Unity and re-released it as a free Enhanced Edition update. Childhood me played the shit out of GBA Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and it very much scratches that JRPG itch.
I’ve always heard it described as Minecraft meets Primitive Technology. I would say that is quite accurate. Maybe some (optional) Don’t Starve like elements where you have to worry about the temporal rift (sort of like insanity) and drifters (largely at night).
Technology progression is much slower than Minecraft. Also much more involved. Want a stone axe? You have to place a stone on the ground and use another stone to knap it into shape first. Make an iron shovel? You have to heat up the ingot first and then beat it into shape on an anvil. If you are too slow and it cools down you have to heat it up again.
Farming has 3 nutrient groups, so fertilizers and crop rotation is important.
Leather making is a multi step process of soaking hides in various liquids.
It has a built in and very extensive guide/wiki. It also has a native Linux build.
I was just recommended a video about this game earlier today. I had already opened this thread, but had not read everything yet. I’m taking it as a sign. Terrafirmacraft is one of my fav Minecraft modpacks, and Vintage Story looked to lean into what TFC was trying to do to Minecraft. Cheers for the recommendation!!
Bugvasion TD (9 reviews)
It’s a charming little tower defense game where you fight bugs with very fun abilities. I also play tested it so I may be a tad biased but I think it’s underated and fun :3
Maize, a point and click/walking simulator/puzzle game about a secret military project to create sentient corn. Quite possibly the silliest game I’ve ever played.
Link doesn’t seem to work for me because the parentheses breaks the link.
Here’s the steam link for anyone else
That’s weird. The link should be to the Wikipedia entry but thanks for making a steam link too!
Taiji (906 reviews)
Nonlinear discovery-based puzzles
If you liked the puzzle design of The Witness, you’ll enjoy Taiji as more of that but with scenic pixel art.
Instead of a linear sequence of tutorials and puzzles, Taiji is open-ended. You can wander wherever you want, solve the puzzles you stumble upon, and ultimately discover this place’s secrets. Sometimes you find a puzzle that you don’t understand, so you’ll just have to leave it for later, when you’ve learned more puzzle mechanics. It’s like a metroidvania but gated by knowledge instead of abilities.
All the puzzles are built on grids of tiles that you can turn on or off. There are no tutorials; you have to figure out the puzzle mechanics on your own, hinted by environmental details.
It’s a Block Pushing Game is a sokobanlike from the creator of Baba Is You. It’s relatively short but has multiple novel mechanics. I enjoyed it enough to create a curses client for it.
PS: If you like Baba Is You, Hempuli publishes multiple new games per month, mostly clever sokoban-likes, at https://hempuli.itch.io/
Severed Steel. F.E.A.R. meets Tron, plus a Mega Man arm cannon, plus the movement out of Titanfall. It’s incredibly fun and satisfying to play, and it has an exceptional soundtrack (if you like synth).
Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1227690/Severed_Steel/
Soundtrack: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1754220/Severed_Steel_Soundtrack/
So I have seen this came come across my radar several times and knowing that I am not actually a huge fan of this type of game but really enjoyed Verlet Swing do you think you would still recommend this game on fun and vibes alone?
I unfortunately haven’t played Verlet Swing so I can’t say. What I can say is that this game is one of the most fun of any shooter I’ve played in probably a decade.
Oh verlet seing is a super indie darling but it’s got a strong vaporware synth vibe so I was wondering if it felt similar. But that’s still a glowibg review.
Honestly if you’re unsure, just check out the OST on YouTube and maybe look at a bit of gameplay. If you find yourself bobbing your head and like the artstyle, I’d put my money on this game being worth a buy
Archive.org mirror of the game download
I genuinely have NO clue if this game is known, but i suspect it mostly isn’t.
It’s Keyboard Drumset Fucking Werewolf! It’s kinda like a music video, but it’s a music video game 👉😏
It’s a collaboration between 2000s indie weirdo darling gamedev cactus and Swedish synthpunk band Fucking Werewolf ASSO.
it’s aggressively strange and moderately challenging, but I think it’s just a goddamn delight and maybe you will too.
Encased is a CRPG, heavily inspired by the classic Fallout games, bringing it’s mechanics into the modern age. It’s story is based on the classic book “Roadside Picknick” (known for being the inspiration of the Stalker series) and is very well written. It has a story narrator, similar to the Divinity: Original Sin games and a very in depth character creation. At the start you choose a department of a research company to work in, which will change the way you interact with many characters, adding some replay value. Anything more I could say would be a spoiler, but the entire beginning (first half to one hour) is an absolute banger.
It’s my favorite indie game of the last few years and at the time of writing this, it is currently 90% of on steam, an absolute bargain
I you love puzzle games you need to try Can of Wormholes, over 100 handcrafted puzzle stages where every puzzle introduces a new idea or interaction, very underrated game.
It is actually a Skyrim mod but basically a complete game that just happens to be built upon Skyrim. It features full professional quality voice acting in German and English, new game systems inspired by the Gothic series, a setting separate from Elder Scrolls, and a story that gets close to the quality of Planescape Torment or Disco Elysium. I can’t recommend it enough.
Ooh I still haven’t tried this. I wonder if it has any issues with Skyrim VR.
It takes some fiddling, but it works, and is fantastic!
It probably works with some tinkering. I would recommend completing it once the way the modders intended since they likely never tested their game with VR in mind.
