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Recommendation engine: Downvote any game you've heard of before

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 ,
@KoboldCoterie@pawb.social avatar

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 ,
@KoboldCoterie@pawb.social avatar

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.

shrodes ,

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 ,
@KoboldCoterie@pawb.social avatar

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!

Jordan117 ,

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 ,

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

setsneedtofeed , (edited )
@setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world avatar

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.

ampersandrew ,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

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.

pivot_root ,

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 ,

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.

Katana314 OP ,

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.

subignition , (edited )
@subignition@fedia.io avatar

This is SOLID GOLD holy shit

edit: OKAY I FINISHED THE FIRST CASE ABSOLUTELY PLAY THIS

KoboldCoterie ,
@KoboldCoterie@pawb.social avatar

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.

Skua ,

...well I feel really bad about downvoting this one, because it's a really good suggestion

darkdemize ,
@darkdemize@sh.itjust.works avatar

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.

KoboldCoterie ,
@KoboldCoterie@pawb.social avatar

Didn’t know that! Was going based off of the review score; 1600 reviews in 5 years seemed pretty little-known. All the same, don’t mind the downvotes - that’s the point of the thread after all. :)

subignition ,
@subignition@fedia.io avatar

This sounds really interesting. I'm gonna put this on my wishlist in hopes it goes on sale or something. Can't justify $25 right now due to circumstances.

Cocodapuf ,

This game is so unique and so fantastic.

KoboldCoterie ,
@KoboldCoterie@pawb.social avatar

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!

Blackmist ,

Never heard of it, but I own it so I’ll install it.

ampersandrew ,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

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 ,

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.

Sanctus ,
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

Gridworld - a simulation game made up of a grid, as the name suggests. You can control the size of the grid, and what spawns in it. The core of the game are these tiny creatures that each take up 1 square. They have varying nodes on them that represent traits and abilities. Under the hood the game says these have to be “wired” correctly by the neural network to make a creature act right. So basically you let this thing run for hours and eventually get little square creatures that eat plants and maybe each other to live.

ampersandrew ,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

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.

silverchase ,
@silverchase@sh.itjust.works avatar

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.

shrodes ,

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!

silverchase ,
@silverchase@sh.itjust.works avatar

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.

shrodes ,

Taiji was waaaaay harder than the Witness for me personally, but great choice. The vibe and music and what not is super chill also

DrowningInteger ,

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

helloharu ,
@helloharu@lemmy.world avatar

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

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