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Actual Hidden Gems on Steam

I love obscure and overlooked games and want to share a bunch with all of you. Most “hidden gem” threads end up listing titles with thousands of reviews or that got some level of marketing. I aim to mostly avoid that. While you may see a few familiar games here, everything in the list below has under 1500 reviews on Steam and most have far less. Far fewer had any notable marketing push or appearance in gaming shows or directs. And since the Steam Sale is ongoing, it’s the perfect time to try these games for yourself.

If you’d like more recommendations, comment with at least three games you like and I’ll respond with a couple more indie games hopefully suited to your tastes. Hope you enjoy!

False Skies - 37 Reviews

  • A JRPG with simple GameBoy graphics but scale matching and surpassing lots of genre classics. It’s most similar to Dragon Quest III, since both deal with custom parties and somewhat open exploration of their worlds.

Hyperspace Delivery Service - 37 Reviews

  • A Star Trek inspired take on Oregon Trail. There’s a bunch of minigames based around travel and planets and events like fighting space pirates to make each trip across space feel fresh.

Treasures of the Aegean - 57 Reviews

  • Imagine if Tomb Raider was a 2D metroidvania and had a timeloop mechanic. That’s this game. The parkour system feels great too.

DIG - Deep in Galaxies - 79 Reviews

  • Terraria/Starbound + Noita + Spelunky = this game. Fly through space to dig through planets and create broken character builds. The first free content update was also just released.

Star Drift Evolution - 169 Reviews

  • A racing game with 75 tracks, 51 vehicles, multiple camera modes, and some great handling. Probably most similar to Art of Rally, but this has more variety.

Prodigal - 182 Reviews

  • A Zelda-like game with Stardew Valley-esque characters and interactions. Loads of dungeons and a charming (if simple) story all wrapped in a GameBoy Color aesthetic.

Intergalactic Fishing - 211 Reviews

  • Travel to infinite lakes and fish in them. Despite the simple graphics there’s a lot being simulated and yet the complexity of it all never makes the game overwhelming.

Elsinor - 235 Reviews

  • An adventure game about Hamlet, but you play as Ophelia and she’s caught in a Groundhog Day scenario. While I don’t think this is the best narrative game (that would be Scarlet Hollow), I do think this is the most intriguing one with so many clever and interesting ideas to share.

RITE - 251 Reviews

  • A difficult precision platformer like Celeste, Super Meat Boy, and I Wanna Be The Guy. It’s split into dozens of bite-sized levels so it’s easy to pick up for short play sessions.

Ctrl Alt Ego - 350 Reviews

  • An immersive sim that stands toe to toe with classics like Deus Ex and Prey. You play as a detached consciousness which can jump between robots to make your way through various missions and levels however you want.

The Eternal Cylinder - 383 Reviews

  • This is like Spore, but even weirder and there’s a cylinder that’s going to kill your aliens.

ADACA - 449 Reviews

  • Imagine S.T.A.L.K.E.R. with Halo’s weapons and a special move that’s Half Life 2’s gravity gun and you’ve got ADACA. The two current story acts are just an introduction to the more open zone mode with quests and mysteries to explore and solve.

Legend Bowl - 723 Reviews

  • If you ever played Tecmo Bowl or Superbowl on the SNES, this is basically an upgraded version. I think this is the best American Football game on Steam. Mutant Football League is a close second.

Environmental Station Alpha - 1046 Reviews

  • It’s really difficult, but I think this is the best encapsulation of the Metroidvania formula. Plus the postgame is more substantial than you’ll probably expect.

Heaven’s Vault - 1410 Reviews

  • Did you like uncovering the secrets of an ancient alien civilization in Outer Wilds? This offers something like that, with a slower pace, more direct narrative, and focus on learning a lost language.

Northern Journey - 1453 Reviews

  • Explore a mystical and mysterious Nordic region. The atmosphere this game builds for itself through environments and music is possibly the best I’ve ever experienced in any game ever. It’s really that good.
neintynein ,

I highly highly cannot more highly recommend Observation. It’s $7 right now.

It’s a unique story game, with an excellent narrative, pace, and conclusion.

Lowbird ,

I very strongly second this recommendation, especially for those who know they like space horror in general. Or for people who like FMV. Or AI stories - you play as an AI in this.

The one caveat is: this game relies on point-and-click type interaction, and it does a TERRIBLE job of indicating which items in any scene are interactable/important. There will inevitably be some time spent clicking around to see f x y or z is something you can interact with. This is super annoying.

BUT the rest of the game is amazing so it’s very worth putting up with UI issue, imo.

Mummelpuffin ,
@Mummelpuffin@beehaw.org avatar

Does Cogmind count? Because even when I see people discussing games like it, which are already pretty niche, it never comes up. That’s tragic, because oh my god, just read some of these articles. This developer is obsessive and even if you don’t get too deep into Cogmind it’s an incredible toy to just screw around with and just see what happens.

liminis ,

The visuals with that game are so impressive for what it is. It’s like they captured particle effects in 2D.

kurcatovium ,

I can recommend NEO Scavenger (slightly under 4k reviews). It’s hardcore survival game in post apocalypse world. I haven’t finished it yet, 'cause I always die in the process. Still very enjoyable if you’re into post-apo.

liminis ,

Terrible interface, but if someone appreciates roguelikes (technically not one, but much of the same DNA) that shouldn’t be enough to turn people away from a great game.

anon_water ,
@anon_water@lemmy.ml avatar

PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo

sapo ,
@sapo@beehaw.org avatar

Shout out to Fishery (309 reviews). It’s pretty niche as an aquarium simulator, but very relaxing and well made.

Also, Ozymandias (770 reviews) is a great strategy game that manages to squeeze the feeling of a full game of civilization into less than one hour.

If you’re interested in classic board games, The Conquest of Go (397 reviews) is a great entry point into Go, with nice tutorial features and a campaign mode that scales difficulty as you win games.

Ghostcity ,

This is a good list! I’ll be checking some of these out for sure. I also have some overlooked games of my own I’d like to list. No links since I’m on mobile, but I may edit them in later.

Qbqbqb (30): Simple arcade game with nice animation and catchy music.

Goetia (496): Spooky point-and-click with some very good puzzles in my opinion.

Under Leaves (530): Relaxing hidden object game with a nice art style. Great game to play when you’re stressed and want to turn your brain off.

Year Walk (1197): Horror adventure game with an off-putting atmosphere and interesting art style.

The Last Door (1541): Horror point-and-click adventure game with a lovecraftian feel.

Hieracosphinx OP ,

Wow, I can second The Last Door being great, but I don’t know most of these. Thanks for pointing them out!

Herctic ,
@Herctic@beehaw.org avatar

+1 to Year Walk, I remember playing that on an iPod Touch when it first came out. I love Simogo, with games like Device 6 and Sayonara Wild Hearts, they make really unique games.

Grrbrr ,
@Grrbrr@sopuli.xyz avatar

Thanks for bringing out Goetia. I bought it back when i had to have any sounds as a distraction, Goetia being very silent at times drove me off almost instantly.

Just seeing that you mentioned good puzzles was enough to give a real go. 3 hours later i’m loving it.

Ghostcity ,

I’m glad you decided to give it another shot! It’s one of my favorite adventure games and I never see anyone discussing it.

rikonium ,

Thanks for the list, very intrigued by Ctrl Alt Ego being an immersive sim fan

jonathanwerewolf ,

Space Tyrant is a 4x space conquest game, but it plays like a fast paced solo board game or adventure. Fun balance between strategy and random space goofiness.

kelvinjps ,

shipped a local multiplayer naval game Overall Reviews: Overwhelmingly Positive (523 reviews) : I had a lot of fun playing this game with my sist er and cousin.
seems like my previous comment didn’t get posted

None_S ,

You know of any other Oregon Trail remixes? Been looking for a game like those ever since I was a little kid.

Hieracosphinx OP , (edited )

Just in case you weren’t aware, The Oregon Trail is on Steam as a remake now, but I haven’t read much about it. I like the colorful style they chose for it though. There’s also the still unreleased Journey Express which looks very similar. Anyway, here’s some other stuff:

  • Organ Trail is the closest to Oregon Trail I think you can get on Steam. Players control a group in the zombie apocalypse instead of journeying to the western frontier.
  • Death Road to Canada captures the same sort of travel with small events interspersed that Oregon Trail had, but plays quite a bit differently…
  • Super Amazing Wagon Adventure is an Oregon Trail-themed shooter.
  • The Flame in the Flood is about traveling by raft but more about survival in the modern gaming sense than Oregon Trail was.
  • FTL is super well known, but pretty comparable. You could also try Trigon Space Story.
None_S ,

Thank you. That Journey express looks interesting. Have you been following that project for a while?

Hieracosphinx OP ,

To be honest I only just stumbled across it when writing up my original response. Made a quick check on steampeek.hu to see if there was any game I didn’t know about or was forgetting and it popped up.

Dymonika ,

I’d be happy to show you Death Road to Canada at no cost to you through Steam Remote Play with my copy! The only catch is that you’d need a gamepad since it doesn’t take multiple players on one keyboard.

MJBrune ,

I made a choose your own adventure that’s been called Oregon trail like bigbossbattle.com/the-away-team-review/ I don’t know if it truly embodies Oregon trail though.

None_S ,

Thanks

PaupersSerenade ,

Neodori Forever - 46 reviews (Positive) is also part of the Summer Sale!

I just picked this up and it’s a fun and vibrant, pixel graphics, arcade style drifting game. There’s a ‘story’ mode followed by an endless mode to keep you busy and the soundtrack made its way onto my playlist. I don’t have a Steam Deck, but it seems like it’d be a good fit.

uint8_t ,

ΔV: Rings of Saturn
store.steampowered.com/app/…/V_Rings_of_Saturn

A hard sci-fi 2D space mining sim.
“A physics-based mining sim, set in the thickest debris field in Sol. Every action has a reaction, lasers are invisible without a medium, and your thrust is a potent weapon. Find trade, adapt your equipment to your playstyle, hire a crew to help. Unravel the mysteries of the rings, or just get rich.”

Swervish ,

∆V is absolutely fantastic! It just got 1.0 a couple weeks back and the dev is super down to earth, hope people check this out and it becomes a bigger hit.

MJBrune ,

If you like choose your adventure games the game I released in 2016 is on sale. …steampowered.com/…/The_Away_Team_Lost_Exodus/ 58 reviews. Mostly positive.

Hieracosphinx OP ,

This looks like something a friend of mine will absolutely love. I’ll be sure to share it with them!

subenji ,

Lingo (109 reviews) - A word puzzler with inspirations from Antichamber and The Witness. This has taken several sessions of getting the gang together to work on it, and after 20 hours, we still have more to do!

Hieracosphinx OP ,

I almost included Lingo on my list because I’m playing it right now and loving it. But I’m only 6 hours in so I didn’t want to make presumptions about anything I’ve not experienced in it yet. What I’ve played though has been fantastic. I like it quite a bit more than The Witness.

Jotunn ,

Here are two 3D platformers I haven’t really heard a lot of but still had very fun with last year.

Demon Turf - 335 Reviews What pulled me in initially was the art syle, the games looks a bit like the cartoons from my childhood. This one got combat, exploration, bosses, collectables. A bit of a problem is that the game tried to do a lot of things at the same time, resulting in a bit uneven quality overall. There are also leaderboards if you into speedrunning.

Demon Turf: Neon Splash - 105 Reviews Some kind of standalone DLC/spinoff to the first game. In this game everything is more streamlined and the design feels more focused. Combat have been cut in order to give the platforming more time to shine and a reason to simplify the controls. The focus is on repeating the same levels for better a time on the leaderboard. Speedrunning is not really my thing but I still found enjoyment in the game. Much cheaper and short than Demon Turf.

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