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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
loved it as well, caught myself thinking about it very long after playing. i was really impressed with how it captured a feeling of nostalgia for a digital community and for an internet of another time, I think hypnospace Outlaw is something quite relevant for many of us now who moved away from r*ddit
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.
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…
To be honest I only just stumbled across it when writing up my original response. Made a quick check on https://steampeek.hu/ to see if there was any game I didn’t know about or was forgetting and it popped up.
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?
Fotonica definitely deserves more love. A simple adrenaline-rush timing-based running game, but extremely addictive! Good for getting really into that hyperfocus zone.
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.
+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.
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.
My go-tos. Granted, they’re largely city builders, but my main jam is WoW, so city builders “tickles” different part of my brain - my downtime when I need a break from the MMORPG space.
Planetbase - A survival/sim/city builder. Guide a group of space settlers trying to establish a base on a remote planet. Grow food, collect energy, mine resources, survive disasters and build a self-sufficient colony in a harsh and unforgiving environment.
Dawn of Man Command a settlement of ancient humans, guide them through the ages in their struggle for survival. Hunt, gather, craft tools, fight, research new techs and face the challenges the environment will throw at you.
The Pale Beyond You didn’t ask to lead this expedition, but here you are. Stuck in the ice, Captain missing, miles from civilisation. Someone has to take charge. Manage your meagre resources, balance safety and morale, make the hard calls, and head in the only direction you can - through The Pale Beyond.
Kingdoms and Castles Kingdoms and Castles is a city-building simulation game about growing a kingdom from a tiny hamlet to a sprawling city and imposing castle. Make trade agreements, alliance, and war with neighboring AI controlled kingdoms. Each villager and resource is individually simulated.
The Wandering Village The Wandering Village is a city-building simulation game on the back of a giant, wandering creature. Build your settlement and form a symbiotic relationship with the colossus. Will you survive together in this hostile, yet beautiful post-apocalyptic world, contaminated by poisonous plants?
Homewind Home Wind is a minimalist, relaxing and cozy city builder about creating large settlements based on proximity tactics. All for free!
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.
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.
One of my personal favorites is still Ring Runner: Flight of the Sages, a 2D spaceflight shooter with text adventure RPG elements. At first it starts of pretty standard but there’s such an incredibly wide array of customization options that it’s almost daunting. Plus the developers really embrace the comedy over the course of the game to pretty extravagant levels. I mean, you literally fight a boss who manufactures DVORAK keyboards.
Thanks for the lists! Seems like whenever someone asks for some lesser-known indie games, people start mentioning ones like Stray and Hades, which are good, but not exactly deep cuts. :)
I looked through my most played and least reviewed indie games on Steam, and found these three. They’re super cheap for the summer sale right now, too.
Venineth - 178 reviews - currently $8 - released 2020
Physics-based 3D puzzle platformer. You play as a ball, with a lot of momentum, that rolls around some amazing looking, mysterious landscapes. Chill ambient music plays in the background. I haven’t gotten very far yet; the reviews suggest that it gets harder as it goes on. The first couple hours are very relaxing.
2D puzzle platformer with the best soundtrack ever (and the soundtrack is 40 cents right now). You need to have very precise jump timing, so it has more difficult platforming than most puzzle platformers. Very replayable with leaderboards, community-made maps, and unlockable new skills that let you solve a level in different ways.
I stayed up way too late playing this one many years ago, and I can’t even explain why it was fun. You just kind of fall downwards, aiming at things as you go down, and trying to find new routes to hit the things you want to hit and avoid the things you don’t want to hit. I can’t really compare it to anything else, except for maybe some platformers where there’s a “falling level.” Except this is all falling levels. It’s weirdly good. They’re working on a new one, although it’s very delayed at this point.
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If you like choose your adventure games, the game I released in 2016 is on sale. https://store.steampowered.com/app/426290/The_Away_Team_Lost_Exodus/ 58 reviews. Mostly positive.
This looks like something a friend of mine will absolutely love. I’ll be sure to share it with them!
Poosh XL 152 reviews. An arcade high score chaser with a neon aesthetic.
Anyone got a gem similar to Hypnospace Outlaw? Literally my favorite game since I discovered it.
loved it as well, caught myself thinking about it very long after playing. i was really impressed with how it captured a feeling of nostalgia for a digital community and for an internet of another time, I think hypnospace Outlaw is something quite relevant for many of us now who moved away from r*ddit
Survivalist, just check it out, looks janky but is a really fun cool game.
Getting major Exile vibes from Environmental Station Alpha; must check it out.
You know of any other Oregon Trail remixes? Been looking for a game like those ever since I was a little kid.
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.
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.
Thank you. That Journey express looks interesting. Have you been following that project for a while?
To be honest I only just stumbled across it when writing up my original response. Made a quick check on https://steampeek.hu/ to see if there was any game I didn’t know about or was forgetting and it popped up.
I made a choose your own adventure that’s been called Oregon trail like https://bigbossbattle.com/the-away-team-review/ I don’t know if it truly embodies Oregon trail though.
Thanks
Really enjoyed Heaven’s Vault.
Surprised that The Enteral Cylinder only has 300-ish reviews. I remember seeing it all over the new when it launched. How is it?
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?
These are some deep cuts right here! Thank you for linking and sharing about them!
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.
Two exploration games that I found enjoyable are 廃村巡り | Haisonmeguri and Umurangi Generation.
Haisonmeguri is super short with a few alternate endings, quite janky but the atmosphere and feel of the game are really well done.
Umurangi Generations is more polished and more of an actual game with objectives. I dislike that it’s timed, but that’s the only big criticism I have.
Fotonica definitely deserves more love. A simple adrenaline-rush timing-based running game, but extremely addictive! Good for getting really into that hyperfocus zone.
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.
Wow, I can second The Last Door being great, but I don’t know most of these. Thanks for pointing them out!
+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.
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.
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.
My go-tos. Granted, they’re largely city builders, but my main jam is WoW, so city builders “tickles” different part of my brain - my downtime when I need a break from the MMORPG space.
Planetbase - A survival/sim/city builder. Guide a group of space settlers trying to establish a base on a remote planet. Grow food, collect energy, mine resources, survive disasters and build a self-sufficient colony in a harsh and unforgiving environment.
Dawn of Man Command a settlement of ancient humans, guide them through the ages in their struggle for survival. Hunt, gather, craft tools, fight, research new techs and face the challenges the environment will throw at you.
The Pale Beyond You didn’t ask to lead this expedition, but here you are. Stuck in the ice, Captain missing, miles from civilisation. Someone has to take charge. Manage your meagre resources, balance safety and morale, make the hard calls, and head in the only direction you can - through The Pale Beyond.
Kingdoms and Castles Kingdoms and Castles is a city-building simulation game about growing a kingdom from a tiny hamlet to a sprawling city and imposing castle. Make trade agreements, alliance, and war with neighboring AI controlled kingdoms. Each villager and resource is individually simulated.
The Wandering Village The Wandering Village is a city-building simulation game on the back of a giant, wandering creature. Build your settlement and form a symbiotic relationship with the colossus. Will you survive together in this hostile, yet beautiful post-apocalyptic world, contaminated by poisonous plants?
Homewind Home Wind is a minimalist, relaxing and cozy city builder about creating large settlements based on proximity tactics. All for free!
Thanks for this list. Just picked up Northern Journey, and wishlisted a couple others.
Also
All three of those games are fantastic! You might want to check these out too:
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!
Wow. I actually own each of those games except Soulash and Rift Wizard (which I ended up returning. Something about it didn’t click with me)
Also Mainframe Defenders is a fun turn-based tactical game.
Wizards and Warlords is a fantasy themed civ-like.
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.
One of my personal favorites is still Ring Runner: Flight of the Sages, a 2D spaceflight shooter with text adventure RPG elements. At first it starts of pretty standard but there’s such an incredibly wide array of customization options that it’s almost daunting. Plus the developers really embrace the comedy over the course of the game to pretty extravagant levels. I mean, you literally fight a boss who manufactures DVORAK keyboards.
Oh that sounds awesome. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the lists! Seems like whenever someone asks for some lesser-known indie games, people start mentioning ones like Stray and Hades, which are good, but not exactly deep cuts. :)
I looked through my most played and least reviewed indie games on Steam, and found these three. They’re super cheap for the summer sale right now, too.
Venineth - 178 reviews - currently $8 - released 2020
Stealth Bastard Deluxe - 628 reviews - currently $1 - released 2012
AaAaAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity - 625 reviews - currently $2 - released 2009