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.
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.
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
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!
I really can’t handle the RPGMaker look of it.
I’m willing to give it a try though
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.
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.
I think the To the moon series hides the fact that it’s RPG Maker rather well
Definitely another great one!
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.
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.
fantastic game by the makers of Laika, check out their whole ludography
Toodee and Topdee (559 reviews)
Puzzle platformer/block pushing hybrid
The 2d platforming world and top-down world have smashed together. You control one hero from each dimension, who share the same space in the levels. You switch between platformer and top-down modes and must get both characters to the goal. The boss levels are hard but very cool, combining action and puzzles.
Also features local 2-player co-op and a generous assist mode.
Astalon: Tears of the Earth. Really fun 8-bit roguelite metroidvania where you swap between characters to access different parts of the dungeon.
Lorn’s Lure (currently demo only, releases in 3 weeks)
An android is led through a vast structure by a glitch in his visual system. Lorn’s Lure is an atmospheric narrative first-person platformer with novel climb-anything mechanics and modernized retro 3D graphics.
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 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.
Minishoot Adventures is a twin stick shooter with a 2D Zelda-style map.
Megabyte Punch is a side scrolling fighting game where you build your robot with different parts salvaged from fought robots that give you different abilities and powerups.
It is a super fast, casual game that you can bang out in a few nights. It has a pretty good electronic soundtrack, boss fights feel weighty even if they are relatively simple.
One of my favorite games as far as just fun and de-stressing!
Achron A RTS with time travel. You can actually send troops and orders in the past to change the outcome of the battle.
https://youtu.be/b6YYWCW1wVsIt’s a shame it never got big. The time travel mechanic is awesome.
Sadly, downvoting this based on the rule…
It did pop up in my feed when it was in development. I think the time travel is neat in concept but just becomes too hard to wrap one’s head around - and from what I remember, the core RTS elements were a bit lacking.
The core RTS is very standard like the first command and conquer. The visual were a bit lacking not becaus ugly but hard to differentiate between untis when in the heat of battle. The single player mission is like a large training. And I kept getting destroyed by the AI even on easy.
I might give it a try again to play with my son, now that he is old enough. It’s really the time travel that should be revived by a bigger or more experienced studio. Lots of potential in there.
Also pissed that the Linux version never made it to Steam, now that Proton is a thing I forgot to check it again.
I recommend Scavenger SV4 It’s a very unique game where you send a rover down to a planet to grab what alien artifacts you can before your radiation exposure gets past the point it can be treated. You can bolt some of them onto your rover to make it better and send it down again. It also has several hundred different endings that are decided by how much radiation you absorbed and how much loot and what loot you brought back.
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
Azimuth is a metroidvania game, and something of an homage to the previous greats of the genre (Super Metroid in particular). You will need to pilot your ship, explore the inside of the planet, fight enemies, overcome obstacles, and uncover the storyline piece by piece. Azimuth features a huge game world to explore, lots of little puzzles to solve, dozens of weapons and upgrades to find and use, and a wide variety of enemies and bosses to tangle with.
It is open source and available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
