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Hieracosphinx

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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...

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.
Hieracosphinx OP ,

Of course! Honestly it was tricky to not make the list even longer. There’s a lot of cool games out there people might miss.

Hieracosphinx OP ,

Oh wow, I missed it early on! The Eternal Cylinder is good, but some occasionally clunky gameplay alongside the very unique alien designs might turn some people away. It crashed twice on me and once you figure out all the systems of play it can feel simple (although there’s a lot of complexity under the hood), so I could see some people giving up on it due to frustration or boredom - especially if the aliens or story don’t hook them.

I loved the environments and alien concept (plus the fun stress of the cylinders approaching) which kept me hooked. Plus it’s much more mechanically involved than Spore was. Spent about 13 hours with the game and left satisfied. If I had to numerically rate it, it’s maybe around 8/10?

Hieracosphinx OP ,

All three of those games are fantastic! You might want to check these out too:

  • Rift Wizard is all about being an overpowered mage. Kind of like Noita, but more traditionally Rogue.
  • Golden Krone Hotel is easier and more approachable than most traditional roguelikes, but I love the sunlight mechanic it plays with.
  • Dawn of the Mexica is a mythical Aztec adventure. Wonderfully thematic and got me studying real-world Aztec history and mythology.
  • Cogmind has robots building themselves from the parts of other robots. Nice shift from the usual fantasy the genre sticks to.
  • UnReal World is one I’ve not actually played, but it looks super appealing if you’re into hardcore roguelikes. Soulash is another that looks neat but I haven’t picked it up yet.

And of course the big ones like ToME, Caves of Qud, and C:DDA are all amazing. But you can get ToME and C:DDA from their original sites for free.

Hope you enjoy Northern Journey!

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.

Hieracosphinx OP ,

Oh that sounds awesome. Thanks for sharing!

Hieracosphinx OP ,

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

Hieracosphinx OP ,

I just picked up Mainframe Defenders on GOG last week! Excited to try it out.

And yeah, I kind of wondered if you might know those titles while I wrote them out. Steam is surprisingly good at recommending traditional roguelikes once you own a few. There’s stuff like Door in the Woods, Shattered Pixel Dungeon, or the slightly different Wayward that are also on Steam but after a while your best bet to find new stuff is to search on RogueBasin or r/roguelikes on Reddit.

Hieracosphinx OP ,

Railroad Ink Challenge looks really interesting. Thanks for sharing!

Hieracosphinx OP ,

Have you played Colony Ship, by the same devs as Age of Decadence? I’ve been keeping an eye on it for a while and looks to be real close to its 1.0 release, but I’ve not heard or read a lot about it.

Hieracosphinx OP ,

Have you played A House of Many Doors? It’s very similar to the Sunless games, although not as polished.

Hieracosphinx OP ,

The Ascent is a longer game and leans harder into RPG elements than Ruiner ever does. For me, Ruiner ran better and like @Catastrophic235 says, the music is incredible. Blows The Ascent’s soundtrack out of the water. Ruiner might have slightly tighter controls too, but I’d have to replay to confirm since I played it with a mouse/keyboard while I played The Ascent with a controller.

Hieracosphinx OP ,

I’ve seen Tametsi, Hexcells, and Bombe continually recommended online as hidden gems but I’ve put off buying any because I’m not much of a Minesweeper fan. I should really give them a try sometime though, since I think the luck aspect is my least favorite part of Minesweeper. Thanks for sharing!

Hieracosphinx OP ,

That sounds incredible. Adding it to my wishlist now!

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.

Hieracosphinx OP ,

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

Hieracosphinx OP ,

Star Valor does look great. If you’re on Mac or Linux you can play Endless Sky or Naev, which are both free. Or outside Steam try Starsector, which might be the best 2D space game on the market, or The Ur-Quan Masters; a continuation of Star Control 2 and also free.

Hieracosphinx OP ,

That’s a tough question. There’s a handful of 3D space combat games like Everspace, Starlink, or Manticore: Galaxy on Fire. There’s also bullet hell games like Galacide and AstroWings: Space War. But none of those are quite like the more open top down games above. Your best bet to find something might be to ask on a larger Nintendo forum. I hope you find something!

Hieracosphinx ,

APICO maybe? It’s got some crafting, but is mostly pretty chill, concentrating on breeding bees.

Dorfromantik is relatively mindless. You place tiles and create landscapes. There’s nice music too. There’s a sort of strategy to it, but it’s pretty light. Unlocking new tiles is the main grind. If you wanted a bit more thought involved, just about any turn-based strategy like Civilization 6 should do.

If you want to keep to JRPGs but at a calmer pace than FF7R, False Skies might be up your alley. ARPGs like Chronicon are also low on the intense/concentration scale (although like most ARPGs, you shouldn’t expect much of a story).

But more than any of those, I think Dave the Diver is your best bet. Ocean theme, doesn’t require great concentration (besides the odd minigame), and has a bunch to be taken in at your own pace.

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