PC Gaming

Does Sable count? It has ~6k reviews on steam. It’s a really unique environmental exploration game with a sweet story (to minimize spoilers) and there’s a lot you come across accidentally and it feels satisfying and like it’s your own journey, in a way.

Also Mudborne. It’s about $8 and has 620 reviews, and the breeding mechanics are fun and tinker-y. Unlocking areas and figuring out puzzles in the name of frog conservation!

Garden Story is also a cute, easy enough, Zelda-like as is Ogu and the Secret Forest, with about 1k reviews each. Less “weird” and more “adorable” but still enjoyable.

Last but not least, I will always recommend Jazzpunk. it’s 6k total reviews across 11 years so hopefully that’s obscure enough but it’s super duper weird in the best way. Play it at least once and you’ll never forget it.

Anyone that's outside of the vtuber sphere, and like Vampire Survivor (and a bunch other genres as minigames), get Holocure: Save the Fans! You don't need to know who the characters are or what the references are, it's as much quality as a mainstream indie hit.

And it's free.

Mine was Mike Klubnika before Buckshot Roulette.

I was absolutely stunned and shocked to my core after experiencing Infineural, Concrete Tremor, Tartarus Engine.

Now that they've become a mainstream indie dev I gotta dig for new devs to add to my list :D

Petal Crash.

Versus puzzles are my favorite genre, but they're all dead and buried today. Panel de Pon isn't coming back unless Intelligent Systems figures out how to put a dating sim in it. Dr. Mario and Puzzle Fighter both got turned into mobile gacha games, and then shut down. Puyo Puyo looked like it was set to make a comeback, but then Sega sold its soul to sell more Tetris.

Petal Crash is more or less the one good thing that has come out of the last decade or so. Sadly being such a small indie meant it never got much of a playerbase, some activity around launch but I haven't been able to play it against a human opponent in a very long time.

I like the Swindle It's a platformer roguelike, you have 100 days to rob the police of an AI that will make crime impossible, but first you have to get enough money to go there and on equipment to not suck when you get there. it's a deceptively deep game both with the mechanics and the strategy of what perks to get when. It took me about 40hrs to beat but it's one of the few games I decided to 100% which took me about 120hrs.

Just this last month I played "Final Profit - A Shop RPG": https://store.steampowered.com/app/1705140/Final_Profit_A_Shop_RPG/

An RPG Maker game with no combat, quite a lot of story that's honnestly not bad and more custom systems than I expected RPG Maker being able to handle.

My understanding is that it was made by a single guy, which for the size of the game is fairly impressive.

You play as the Queen of the Elves trying to fight the embodiment of capitalism by becoming the very best capitalist. I believe there's some branching to the story, but I only did one playthrough, which took about 20 hours.

I mean, 6k people have left reviews but Hylics is definitely one of the weirdest experiences you can have on Steam. The second one is disqualified due to popularity. If you play them both get their album Absent Moon and listen to it afterwards. Its an experience.

Gotta go with Perspective (it's free, btw) - it's a 2D platformer" with a 3D perspective, but not in the way you'd think.

Essentially, you have 2 modes: first-person walking/camera adjusting and 2d platforming. The first-person mode allows you to align the platforms to helpful positions from the perspective, and then swap mode to 2d platformer to walk on those platforms. Part of the trick is that the 2d guy stays the same size on your screen, but you must adjust the perspective so he can fit through gaps and such. You switch back and forth to help the platformer guy through levels.

Definitely for fans of Portal, Superliminal and the likes. No real story in this one though, but gameplay is kinda-ish similar.

Smushi Come Home

Beautiful and soulful little platformer, 99% positive reviews on steam.

Bonus points if it feels personal or revealing of the creator

Solo dev. Reading his letters of gratitude to players and comparing it with the game he made gives me this vibe very strongly

It's been a bit since I've played it, but from what I remember Sky Rogue was pretty fun. Plane based roguelite. Simple enough flight model to pick up and play but complex enough to not be mind numbing. It's also 75% off right now

Teleglitch

I loved this game for the ambiance, story and low fi aesthetics, as well as excellent gameplay

The "bad" graphics take me back to when your brain had to use imagination to fill in the gap of what the technology wasn't ready to show you

The game is hard, but with practice it's manageable and very satisfying.

The game was made by a duo from like Lithuania who I never managed to follow what else they worked on. This plus the fact that I've still never met anyone who's even heard of the game, truly make it my personal gem

By the way excellent thread! Thank you for posting this! I'm enjoying everyone's suggestions

Ilamentia. Abstract puzzle/3D platformer. The developer has made more polished games since, but this one lives in my head.

Probably Rumu. It's not very difficult and more narrative-driven. The game has a lot of heart though. It might even make you cry. Go in blind if possible, the story is pretty unique and I enjoyed it a lot.

Solium Infernum: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1893810/Solium_Infernum/

Brilliantly original strategy game where you play demon lords fighting for rule of hell. Amazing, complex strategy where you need to use insults, threats, challenges and diplomacy just as much as military and magical power to win. Incredible art and writing and incredibly fun and deep gameplay. Warning: you may ruin friendships over this game, you can really do devastating stuff to each other once player abilities ramp up in the later game.

Mine is a more normie choice, but I'd have to say Chained Echoes.

It's a JRPG made by one guy in Germany. Lasts 40-60 hours and manages to integrate both on-foot and flying mech mechanics together in a way that works. Plus, there's several encounters throughout the story that are unique and interesting, and the story tends to subvert a lot of expected norms in the genre.

The downsode is there's plenty of spots where the quality drops. There's a couple of scenes with bad and nonsense writing, a couple of poorly thought out encounters, and and obsession for dangling post-game content in front of your nose throughout the story when there's no need to make it post-game. Mainly, Mattias Linda really needed an editor to tell him "no" on some spots. As it is, I'd give it a 3.5-4 out of 5. If he had someone for proofreading and QA it'd probably be a solid 4.5/5.

I only stumbled upon the game because I saw someone, cannot remember who or even find the livestream, play a few seconds of the game before closing it and knowing I need it in my life, but Brok the InvestiGator.

Stream was from a small creator, that much I know because it was a furry creator on the platform. Randomly floated across my recommendations one early morning, so I had to look at it because I see a game with anthro characters and I can't help myself.