If you’re feeling Witchy, I’ve got two good indie games for you! The first came out this year, and is called the Mildew Children. A point and click style adventure game where you play as Kyrphel, a witch in a town where only witches and the ruling leader are allowed to be over the age of 18. An evil curse is befalling the village, and it falls to her and her coven to stop it. A surprisingly compelling game full of beautiful art and an intense story about ritual, religion, and what it means to be a part of a society.
The other game, and still one of my favorite games of the last five years, is Black Book. When her love commits suicide and is therefore condemned to hell, Vasilisa makes a deal with a demon to open all the pages of the Black Book and return he’ll bring her betrothed back to life.
In gameplay you take on the role of a witch in 19th century Slavic Russia. As both a pillar of the community but also a mistrusted figure, people come to Vasilisa for help with their problems: from an imo breaking plates to a demon murdering people at a sugar mill, and many other varied situations. You make choices, and decide how you will manage your disparate roles as a witch while learning about the real beliefs and culture of 19th century Slavic Russia. This game feels like it was designed by an anthropologist, and has a works cited page for the in depth work the designers did for the game to feel authentic and real. It rules.
When you do get into combat you use a deck you’ve crafted of spells to string along attacks to fight enemies. The deck building in this game is very good, with a myriad of viable strategies for how to build your spellbook.
428: Shibuya Scramble is great. The only bad thing about it is that it's still very clearly got the sort of Wii x DVD menu game aesthetic and has absolutely no QoL updates for the rereleases, which makes it feel sort of cheap/clunky, especially when trying to do the postgame bonus quiz stuff. Still 100% recommend it.
And speaking of Newgrounds, of course, this is where I recommend the Flashpoint Archive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nIbn3vvvMc
That's (almost) every single flash game (and animation!) out there, kept alive and playable through a huge preservation project. And not just Flash, either - a ton of old web games from all sorts of engines.
Did you grow up playing weird games on the Lego and Cartoon Network websites like I did? They're all there.
Did you spend way too much time on Newgrounds or Kongregate or whatever? If they weren't paid games, they're probably in there somewhere.
You can get a ~1.9-3.5GB installation if you want to just download games as you find them in the listings, or (if you're a hoarder) you can torrent the full 1.68TB install.
+5
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
So the early 1900s were a wild place. The world was in turmoil, the industrial revolution was still tearing down traditions and nations left and right, and basically a lot of wild shit was going on like that little WWI thing. This game is not about WWI. It is about a professional army that fought in Russia against the Central Powers, but with no nation of its own until after the war. This was the Czechoslovak Legion which, up until WWI, was an ethnic group with no nation. However, they ended their part in the war to find out they actually had a home nation to return to now. The problem? They were in Russia. And their new home country was on the other side of the Eastern Front, which was still contested. Being tough bastards, they shrug their shoulders and go "okay, we'll just go the other way around the planet to get home".
Which is what they did.
Except this is also right when you've got that minor little Bolshevik Revolution kick off and Russia plummets into civil war and suddenly you've got different groups eyeing this very large well-equipped professional army, probably the largest and best army left on that side of the front at this point, and the White loyalists want them out and the Red revolutionaries want to force them to stay and fight for them until both sides change their minds at various points. To which the army says "fuck that" and proceeds to take over the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Yes, that railroad. The one that runs from Moscow in the West allllllll five-fucking-thousand-something miles to the Pacific Ocean. Did I mention the army had some 70,000+ people? This was an army army. And they made it! The Allies provided a fleet of transport vessels, picked them up in Eastern Russia, ferried them across the Pacific, transported them across the US, ferried them across the Atlantic, and then transported them to their new homeland in what was then Czechoslovakia (and is now the Czech Republic and Slovakia).
And this train ride is what Last Train Home is about. It's an awesome mix of building up your train to keep everybody alive, gathering resources, and doing a number of missions tactically commanding a team in combat. It's got neat stuff like being able to help local civilians as additional objectives. Of course it's not historically perfect, but it's highly atmospheric and does feature the major points of history like how the Czechoslovakian Army was betrayed by the Russian factions at least once each, but neither side was strong enough to contest the Legion.
Overall it's an impressively good game about a historical event I had never even heard of despite being one of the most interesting events related to WWI (I'm from the US so we only get the "'Merica!" version of history in school, wherein nobody else does anything worthwhile except 'Merica!). It's realistic enough that there was even an attempt to ban its sale in Russia for disagreeing with state history, which should give an idea of where the game falls on the "truth versus story" spectrum.
There's still many people who've never heard of Outer Wilds! Either they missed it at release or were too young.
Tip: go into it as blind as possible, but play at least long enough to get into space. (I've seen negative reviews that indicate the person did not reach that point, which means they got mad/impatient with the tutorial section, and bailed before ever getting to the meat of the game.)
On that note:
Outer Wilds sucks because it doesn't have a save state.
So it was impossible for me to get past the tutorial section.
Or rather, I probably got side-tracked or something, and then couldn't save.
And short run time or not, I rather think the no-save-state issue is big enough that it needs to be highlighted.
It likely furthers the artistic direction, but it rather limits the accessibility.
Hmm.
That save state only kicks in after you get the launch codes, and you can get those without engaging with the tutorial section at all.
There's still many people who've never heard of Outer Wilds! Either they missed it at release or were too young.
Tip: go into it as blind as possible, but play at least long enough to get into space. (I've seen negative reviews that indicate the person did not reach that point, which means they got mad/impatient with the tutorial section, and bailed before ever getting to the meat of the game.)
On that note:
Outer Wilds sucks because it doesn't have a save state.
So it was impossible for me to get past the tutorial section.
Or rather, I probably got side-tracked or something, and then couldn't save.
And short run time or not, I rather think the no-save-state issue is big enough that it needs to be highlighted.
It likely furthers the artistic direction, but it rather limits the accessibility.
Hmm.
That save state only kicks in after you get the launch codes, and you can get those without engaging with the tutorial section at all.
Why.
Because after you get the launch codes is when spoilers which spoilers.
Pseudoregalia - Pseudoregalia might be my GOTY 2023, and it was made by one person! It's a exploration focused, 3rd person metroidvania/platformer that controls fantastically and has charming retro PS1 graphics. The only downside (?) is the player character looks like a furry's OC
Shady Knight - Dark Messiah of Might and Magic meets Dustforce?, Neon White? with a splash of Devil May Cry/Bayonetta. Look at this sick trailer! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD1l2Ce8P1s
Everything in this trailer is just someone playing the game normally! You're just constantly doing cool stuff while playing!!!
i don't have #1 anymore because other people started running levels . now there's a guy named supahsemmie who has #1 on the flawless leaderboard on basically every level, and his runs are actually too good for me to compete with
that's the neon white / dustforce connection in my mind, but i don't really know what to call that - speedrun games? but it's not *really* a speedrun game, you just have the leaderboard there if you want to be insane (and actually one of my 'complaints' about shady knight is that it doesn't have a medal system like neon white, where you can compete against the developer instead of having to compare yourself to the absolutely cracked sickos online)
Pseudoregalia - Pseudoregalia might be my GOTY 2023, and it was made by one person! It's a exploration focused, 3rd person metroidvania/platformer that controls fantastically and has charming retro PS1 graphics. The only downside (?) is the player character looks like a furry's OC
Ah, Pseudoregalia is quite solid. Very good movement - I know we're used to PS1-looking games controlling like tanks with spiked treads, but Pseudoregalia runs smooth as butter, genuinely one of the better 3D movements I've tried. It's fairly short and easy but very enjoyable and *absolutely* worth it for its low price.
(Also anyone for whom the main character being a furry OC is a downside should consider a little less cowardice in their life, if you ask me!)
On that note:
Outer Wilds sucks because it doesn't have a save state.
So it was impossible for me to get past the tutorial section.
Or rather, I probably got side-tracked or something, and then couldn't save.
And short run time or not, I rather think the no-save-state issue is big enough that it needs to be highlighted.
It likely furthers the artistic direction, but it rather limits the accessibility.
[...]
That save state only kicks in after you get the launch codes, and you can get those without engaging with the tutorial section at all.
[...]
I find a lot of neat little gems through Game Pass. A couple that stand out:
A Short Hike: gorgeous and very chill exploration game. It’s unstoppably cheery and just a wonderful time.
Firewatch: neat mystery game set in the woods in Wyoming. You are a park ranger tasked with being a lookout for forest fires, and weird shit is happening. Pretty short and well executed.
Max and the Curse of Brotherhood: this was a cool platformer I found on Games with Gold a long time ago. You can manipulate wind/water/vines and use it to get across various levels to rescue your brother.
Sayonara Wild Hearts: possibly the weirdest game I’ve played in a while, it’s very surreal and has a kickass soundtrack.
Edit: Honorable mention, Celeste is an absolutely incredible platformer with great movement, great story, great music, and a great challenge to boot. Not really obscure but I will always sing it’s praises.
You play as Artemy Burakh, a young surgeon who just graduated medical school. At your father's urging, you return to your home, a remote village on the Russian steppe, originally home to a native tribe before it was colonized by Europeans (Artemy is of mixed descent). The day you arrive, you discover that your father was murdered, and you are immediately suspected of the crime. Worse yet, a plague is breaking out, a disease that may or may not have a supernatural component, punishment from the native god for desecrating its land. You have to navigate the complex social tensions of the town while working to combine your medical schooling with your people's traditional folk medicine in order to produce a cure, with the knowledge that if things get too far out of hand, the state government will arrive and burn the entire village down to prevent the disease from spreading further.
At least, that's what you're supposed to be doing. More often than not, you'll have to put those concerns on the back burner while you scrounge for food and clean drinking water and make time to sleep. The game's a survival simulator and on the default difficulty, it is punishing. You might even get the plague yourself, and have to deal with your meters draining faster as voices whisper to you about how hopeless it is to try and save a doomed people. You'll die, and you'll die a lot, and every time you do, you'll wake up on a stage, with a mysterious theater director chiding you for doing such a bad job at playing the role of Artemy Burakh.
This game is... I mean, it's everything. It's tense and tragic but it also knows when to cut all of that with humor. It's loaded with Big Ideas in a way that you just don't see from video games very often. The difficulty is punishing, but it's also purposeful, because when you finally manage to claw out even a small victory, when you manage to trade enough lint for enough moldy cheese to fill your stomach enough to save a single life with nothing but a rusty scalpel and a handful of weeds from the neighbor's backyard, it feels incredible. The game's chock-full of memorable characters and tense decision points and crazy secrets and I truly, truly cannot recommend it enough.
If you like games like mass effect or the modern fallouts or whatever then i really think you're obligated to check out Pathologic 2. Don't worry about the "2," either, the game is really more of a remake of Pathologic 1 than a sequel.
And if you start now you'll be able to wrap it up in time to play Pathologic 3 next year!
I find a lot of neat little gems through Game Pass. A couple that stand out:
A Short Hike: gorgeous and very chill exploration game. It’s unstoppably cheery and just a wonderful time.
Firewatch: neat mystery game set in the woods in Wyoming. You are a park ranger tasked with being a lookout for forest fires, and weird shit is happening. Pretty short and well executed.
I feel like Firewatch was another indie that was huge at the time but quickly dropped out of consciousness. I enjoyed our time with it!
I've got A Short Hike on my wishlist despite finishing it on gamepass. Mostly because I want to throw some money at the developer, partly just to replay sometime. Super charming, and soundtrack to match. Same story with Unpacking. And TOEM.
My Twitter timeline reminded me of another somewhat obscure but also fantastic game: Hatoful Boyfriend.
Yes, it's a high school otome dating sim where all the hot boys are literal non-metaphorical birds.
It is also legitimately good, has some really fun writing in it, and the secret final route (unlocked by dating ALL the boys, of course) is a real banger.
Obscure is pretty subjective, but I’ll recommend a game called Outland which is a little metroidvania on the 360/X1/XSX with an African inspired art style. It’s also on sale on Xbox for $3 for the next 24 hours.
Metamorphosis, which is as accurate to the Kafka book as Dante’s Inferno is to the Kafka book. But you get to play a cockroach and wander around weird surreal landscapes. Currently 80% off on Steam.
I don't know if this counts as obscure but I will recommend Inscryption. A deckbuilder from the guy who made Pony Island and The Hex (which I have not played. Like those, it expands into a meta game with a meta narrative in some trippy ways. However the thing you might not expect is that the core gameplay underneath it all is really solid. The three acts have three very solid interpretations of the base mechanic into pretty dramatically unique card games, any of which would be satisfying to play on their own. It's got the expected ARG sort of stuff but the story is still satisfying even if you don't delve into that at all. You have to do some little escape room games to progress the story in between the deckbuilding but as I mentioned, the underlying games work on their own without that stuff, which makes that stuff even more interesting.
And speaking of Newgrounds, of course, this is where I recommend the Flashpoint Archive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nIbn3vvvMc
That's (almost) every single flash game (and animation!) out there, kept alive and playable through a huge preservation project. And not just Flash, either - a ton of old web games from all sorts of engines.
Did you grow up playing weird games on the Lego and Cartoon Network websites like I did? They're all there.
Did you spend way too much time on Newgrounds or Kongregate or whatever? If they weren't paid games, they're probably in there somewhere.
You can get a ~1.9-3.5GB installation if you want to just download games as you find them in the listings, or (if you're a hoarder) you can torrent the full 1.68TB install.
I suggest Sword of Aragon, an SSI classic from 1989 and one of those games that came out of the Avalon Hill board gamers that were using PCs to automate a lot of board game mechanics. You're the son of a recently deceased Baron and want to build an empire to protect your people from roaming monsters. You can be anything from a Conan the Barbarian inspired fighter to a power spell slinging wizard, a bow using ranger, or any number of other classes as well as recruiting heroes to serve as your generals and powerful units in their own right.
With full 16 color Enhanced Graphics Adaptor (EGA) graphics, these graphics will be some of the best you've ever seen*:
This is sort of a 3D Zelda game, but with difficult platforming instead of puzzles. I played with a controller, and I didn't even think about switching to mouse and keyboard. For the most part, it works well, and I'd recommend it if you have a controller, and want some 3D platforming that's more difficult than Mario. (Also, it shows up in bundles, so you might already have it.)
The good:
* A good 3D platforming game for PC comes out once every few years. This is one of them.
* The control is very precise; the game might ask you to jump between very small crumbling platforms in midair, but this works a lot better than you might think.
* Some of these levels are extremely large, which I appreciate.
* There's some nice Hollow Knight inspirations in the aesthetics.
The bad:
* There's a few instances where you'll activate a lever, then have X seconds to get through a platforming challenge. This works fine; the issue is that if you mess up and want to restart early, it works like "Hit lever, cutscene showing door at the end closing plays. Hit lever again, cutscene showing door at the end opening plays." Those cutscenes are a bit too long, and get old by the second or third time you see them.
* The game is overly linear. It opens up a bit at the end, where you get a choice of two whole areas you can go through in any order, but that's about it. Otherwise, it's going to the new area that just opened up, beating it, and getting a key to the next area.
* There's no map, which gets a bit weird since a few characters might refer to something being to the North, for example.
The difficulty:
There are a few different pieces of the game, and I'll talk about each one in turn:
* The combat was a bit annoying to get the hang of; even after completing the game, I still felt like I was just brute-forcing my way through the combat instead of gaining any sort of mastery. (And it feels like the combat could be mastered.) On the other hand, healing items are easy to acquire, and spending a few thousand coins on extra healing slots will sort you out for the entire game. So I got hit a lot in combat, but then just healed that right back again.
* The bosses are, honestly, fine. Again, you have access to a good stock of healing, so I got through most of them on my first try, albeit with substantial healing; there's no expectation that you'll take a few tries to figure out the boss first. The bosses I died on were more due to trying to leave the healing to the last minute than anything else. Even the final boss went down first try, and I had trouble figuring out a couple attacks.
* The platforming in the main game is more difficult than in most platforming games, but it's not *that* bad.
* The platforming in the void challenges gets significantly more difficult than in the main game; you'll be going through areas that resemble a 3D Meat Boy level, and there's never quite enough checkpoints. However, these are optional. They do give you an extra heart each, but the only reward for completing all of them is cosmetic. If you skip over the hardest 4-5, you'll still be in fine shape combat-wise, while cutting out some of the hardest platforming the game has on offer. (Though even the void challenges aren't as bad as they look, and you're not out anything other than time if you attempt them and fail a few dozen times.)
There's also free DLC that has a bunch of hard platforming challenges.
This is a weird hybrid of a puzzle game and a dungeon crawl. It's definitely composed of a bunch of puzzles, but it feels like it took more than a little inspiration from the puzzles of Legend of Grimrock, (while I missed most of the classic dungeon crawls, this seems very specifically inspired by that game) and made an entire game based from those. So, even the combat is puzzle-like, and there's a bunch of switches, floor plates, and so on. In addition, a large amount of thinking outside the box is required.
This mostly works. The biggest issue is that this is a bit of a weird combination where I can solve a puzzle but fail on the execution a few times, or get stuck on a level because I didn't notice a hidden element. And I'm not just talking about loose bricks in the wall, but, for example, scripting on enemies that cause them to do something unexpected. Someone looking for a puzzle game would want an undo option, more discoverability, and a more generous attitude towards timing, while someone looking for a dungeon crawl will find a puzzle game. The controls also have issues. A controller isn't quite precise enough, while the keyboard controls are weird. (You can only remap joystick buttons, not keyboard.) This is originally a mobile game, and I'm blaming the controls on that.
On the plus side, the hint system is excellent, proceeding from general hints to a step by step guide on how to actually solve the level, so even when the game gets a bit cryptic you're unlikely to get stuck.
This is a short (about 1-2 hour) first-person metroidvania. Progression is basically about finding the bosses/weapons scattered around the somewhat small map. I actually ended up accidentally sequence-breaking my way past the final weapon, and I'm aware of at least one other sequence-break that I found and decided not to take, which should let you know the level of indie-ness on display.
The story, told in collectable logs, is good. In combination with the general vibe of the map, it reminds me of a sci-fi short story from the 80s or earlier, based on the exploration of an unknown world filled with the weirdest stuff the author could think up.
In the end, it's very much an indie game, but it's cheap, not that difficult, and quick to play through.
Hand of Doom is bad, but it's bad on purpose. It's "inspired by the FMV games and dungeon crawlers of the early 90's", which here means an extremely low-rez 3D view, an interface that is intentionally cumbersome (thankfully the game doesn't need you to do anything fast), and acting that can best be described as "enthusiastic". I haven't played much of the games that this takes inspiration from (the second or third Lands of Lore, I think?), so I don't have that much nostalgia here.
It actually works, though? It's more an adventure game than a dungeon crawler, and never really gets frustrating, thanks to being developed this millennium by people who actually know what they are doing.
Supraland: 3D Metroidvania taking place in a sandbox. Literally. Cool environment, and it uses the Metroidvania elements extremely well. Haven't played the followups yet, but they exist. https://store.steampowered.com/app/813630/Supraland/
Some lesser known (probably not actually obscure) suggestions: Escape Goat 2 https://store.steampowered.com/app/255340/Escape_Goat_2/
Charming pixel puzzler, with a difficulty that feels just right. 1 is good also, but 2 is just a lot more.
The FAR series, Lone Sails and Changing Tides https://store.steampowered.com/app/609320/FAR_Lone_Sails/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1570010/FAR_Changing_Tides/
2D games where your protagonist uses a cumbersome but powerful vehicle (a truck of sorts in the first game, a boat/sub in the second) to travel a long distance, alone (hence, FAR). Puzzle games, but pretty gentle about it, it's much more about flow state and experiencing the world/imagining what's been happening in it.
Holocure https://store.steampowered.com/app/2420510/HoloCure__Save_the_Fans/
Probably the least obscure game here, but it's the even more unhinged fan game version of Vampire Survivors. Where VS has focused on insane numbers of characters and new weapons, Holocure is full of fan service for very distinct characters who have a more distinct and unique playstyle compared to any VS characters. And also entire sub games as bonus content, such as a Jump King style tower and an Animal Crossing style hub with fishing and farming. This is also free.
Wintermoor Tactics Club is highschool drama meets d&d meets final fantasy tactics. It works very well and is super fun.
Cloudpunk has you playing as a futuristic delivery driver. You spend the majority of the game in your taxi but you can get out and explore on foot as well. Voxel graphics but that never bothered me.
Dodgeball Academia is a shounen style game about going to a school for dodgeball. People get super powers and the characters take it way to seriously.
Banner of the Maid stars a young woman fresh out of military school and assigned her first role as a leading officer during Napoleonic France. The game is actually pretty fucking hard which is maybe why it didn't get that much traction because damn is it cool. I am not an expert at that historical era but from my POV they did a decent job slotting this into the real life military conflicts of the time. The combat is similar to final fantasy tactics, except the units have fixed classes. Although you can upgrade and customize them into a higher tier of class they cannot change at that point.
Kaichu is a dating sim for Kaiju. It's really simplistic and mostly just a short, cute, goofy time but it's also pretty cheap so why not.
I would also second the Sayonara Wild Hearts suggestion. Very cool game and the soundtrack is awesome.
Gamertag: KL Retribution
PSN:Furlion
+1
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Wintermoor Tactics Club is highschool drama meets d&d meets final fantasy tactics. It works very well and is super fun.
Cloudpunk has you playing as a futuristic delivery driver. You spend the majority of the game in your taxi but you can get out and explore on foot as well. Voxel graphics but that never bothered me.
Dodgeball Academia is a shounen style game about going to a school for dodgeball. People get super powers and the characters take it way to seriously.
Banner of the Maid stars a young woman fresh out of military school and assigned her first role as a leading officer during Napoleonic France. The game is actually pretty fucking hard which is maybe why it didn't get that much traction because damn is it cool. I am not an expert at that historical era but from my POV they did a decent job slotting this into the real life military conflicts of the time. The combat is similar to final fantasy tactics, except the units have fixed classes. Although you can upgrade and customize them into a higher tier of class they cannot change at that point.
Kaichu is a dating sim for Kaiju. It's really simplistic and mostly just a short, cute, goofy time but it's also pretty cheap so why not.
I would also second the Sayonara Wild Hearts suggestion. Very cool game and the soundtrack is awesome.
Banner of the Maid looks like it pulls a lot from Langrisser(armies fighting once the unit attacks).
Thomas Was Alone: it's just various squares and rectangles platforming. Very true. But the narration is so good that each shape ends up with its own personality without any sort of character voices. Only narration.
Thomas Was Alone is a masterclass of storytelling through narration.
The entire game is just controlling different colored shapes with different special abilities, but the narration gives all of them their own personalities and hopes and dreams.
It was very satisfying, and I highly recommend it.
Wintermoor Tactics Club is highschool drama meets d&d meets final fantasy tactics. It works very well and is super fun.
Cloudpunk has you playing as a futuristic delivery driver. You spend the majority of the game in your taxi but you can get out and explore on foot as well. Voxel graphics but that never bothered me.
Dodgeball Academia is a shounen style game about going to a school for dodgeball. People get super powers and the characters take it way to seriously.
Banner of the Maid stars a young woman fresh out of military school and assigned her first role as a leading officer during Napoleonic France. The game is actually pretty fucking hard which is maybe why it didn't get that much traction because damn is it cool. I am not an expert at that historical era but from my POV they did a decent job slotting this into the real life military conflicts of the time. The combat is similar to final fantasy tactics, except the units have fixed classes. Although you can upgrade and customize them into a higher tier of class they cannot change at that point.
Kaichu is a dating sim for Kaiju. It's really simplistic and mostly just a short, cute, goofy time but it's also pretty cheap so why not.
I would also second the Sayonara Wild Hearts suggestion. Very cool game and the soundtrack is awesome.
Banner of the Maid looks like it pulls a lot from Langrisser(armies fighting once the unit attacks).
There aren't actually armies. You're controlling individual characters and the troops shown during attacks are just representing the unit's HP.
It's kind of interesting to me reading that Kira (of Lunacid, Lost In Vivo, Spooky's House of Jumpscares) wasn't part of the dev team for Dread Delusion, but helped with melee weapons and enemy AI, because, er, I don't think of any of Kira's games as having much going on in either area?
I'm 90% sure melee weapons in Lunacid are just doing a single line trace of an appropriate distance for your weapon straight out from your on-screen crosshair and seeing if you hit something relevant, no collision or anything for the weapon, accidentally place your cursor under an armpit and you miss completely with your greatsword.
Obviously help is help when you're working on a game, but it still stuck out to me that that was the contribution since those two things are what I'd consider the somewhat underwhelming part of Kira's games (with the good parts being 'pretty much everything else').
banner of the maid is very good if you like strategy rpgs / anything that will scratch that fire emblem itch. i liked the combo of french characters, english text and chinese voice lines
The website seems to imply that the game is never coming back in the original form, but they're basically doing a 1.5 remake with new stuff in it to avoid whatever issues they were having. The new game will be called JYSTICE
Wintermoor Tactics Club is highschool drama meets d&d meets final fantasy tactics. It works very well and is super fun.
Cloudpunk has you playing as a futuristic delivery driver. You spend the majority of the game in your taxi but you can get out and explore on foot as well. Voxel graphics but that never bothered me.
Dodgeball Academia is a shounen style game about going to a school for dodgeball. People get super powers and the characters take it way to seriously.
Banner of the Maid stars a young woman fresh out of military school and assigned her first role as a leading officer during Napoleonic France. The game is actually pretty fucking hard which is maybe why it didn't get that much traction because damn is it cool. I am not an expert at that historical era but from my POV they did a decent job slotting this into the real life military conflicts of the time. The combat is similar to final fantasy tactics, except the units have fixed classes. Although you can upgrade and customize them into a higher tier of class they cannot change at that point.
Kaichu is a dating sim for Kaiju. It's really simplistic and mostly just a short, cute, goofy time but it's also pretty cheap so why not.
I would also second the Sayonara Wild Hearts suggestion. Very cool game and the soundtrack is awesome.
Banner of the Maid looks like it pulls a lot from Langrisser(armies fighting once the unit attacks).
There aren't actually armies. You're controlling individual characters and the troops shown during attacks are just representing the unit's HP.
The website seems to imply that the game is never coming back in the original form, but they're basically doing a 1.5 remake with new stuff in it to avoid whatever issues they were having. The new game will be called JYSTICE
The rumor seems to be that they were threatened with a lawsuit for being too close to Judge Dredd. But I'm a little skeptical, as I don't think they're that similar.
0
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
no you were right you can also very easily fly into the sun in outer wilds, if you get too close to it your ship isn't strong enough to escape its gravity
a lot of that game is learning about all the ways that space can kill you
You play a leccy stationed on a Scottish oil rig in the 70s. Shit goes down when the site manager pushes the crew to drill too greedily and too deep.
It's extremely linear, but the amount of detail put into the world is fantastic. Every area of the game feels lived in, functional, like it's there for a purpose and not just a level in a game. The sound design is deeply unsettling and haunting even before things go sideways, but also isn't afraid to just sit in moments of quiet sometimes.
The VA is superb and, being almost entirely a Scottish cast, doesn't shy away from leaning right into Scots in the dialogue.
The horror elements are not really anything new or groundbreaking, but are paced nicely and do contribute to some pretty neat (and honestly gorgeous imo) setpieces.
Probably one of my favourite games of the year that I've seen almost zero reception for.
Posts
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2420350/The_Mildew_Children/
The other game, and still one of my favorite games of the last five years, is Black Book. When her love commits suicide and is therefore condemned to hell, Vasilisa makes a deal with a demon to open all the pages of the Black Book and return he’ll bring her betrothed back to life.
In gameplay you take on the role of a witch in 19th century Slavic Russia. As both a pillar of the community but also a mistrusted figure, people come to Vasilisa for help with their problems: from an imo breaking plates to a demon murdering people at a sugar mill, and many other varied situations. You make choices, and decide how you will manage your disparate roles as a witch while learning about the real beliefs and culture of 19th century Slavic Russia. This game feels like it was designed by an anthropologist, and has a works cited page for the in depth work the designers did for the game to feel authentic and real. It rules.
When you do get into combat you use a deck you’ve crafted of spells to string along attacks to fight enemies. The deck building in this game is very good, with a myriad of viable strategies for how to build your spellbook.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1138660/Black_Book/
One Finger Death Punch
It's a wonderfully arcadey two-button beat-em-up that's currently €1.24 on Steam.
The second thing that came to mind, after seeing Iji recommended (also a great game!), is Daniel Remar's other games, particularly Garden Gnome Carnage.
There's nothing quite like a grainy 360p YouTube video from 2007.
You can get it for free from his website (which also has other great games like Princess Remedy In a World of Hurt), or you could just warp back in time and play the flash version on Newgrounds.
And speaking of Newgrounds, of course, this is where I recommend the Flashpoint Archive.
That's (almost) every single flash game (and animation!) out there, kept alive and playable through a huge preservation project. And not just Flash, either - a ton of old web games from all sorts of engines.
Did you grow up playing weird games on the Lego and Cartoon Network websites like I did? They're all there.
Did you spend way too much time on Newgrounds or Kongregate or whatever? If they weren't paid games, they're probably in there somewhere.
You can get a ~1.9-3.5GB installation if you want to just download games as you find them in the listings, or (if you're a hoarder) you can torrent the full 1.68TB install.
So the early 1900s were a wild place. The world was in turmoil, the industrial revolution was still tearing down traditions and nations left and right, and basically a lot of wild shit was going on like that little WWI thing. This game is not about WWI. It is about a professional army that fought in Russia against the Central Powers, but with no nation of its own until after the war. This was the Czechoslovak Legion which, up until WWI, was an ethnic group with no nation. However, they ended their part in the war to find out they actually had a home nation to return to now. The problem? They were in Russia. And their new home country was on the other side of the Eastern Front, which was still contested. Being tough bastards, they shrug their shoulders and go "okay, we'll just go the other way around the planet to get home".
Which is what they did.
Except this is also right when you've got that minor little Bolshevik Revolution kick off and Russia plummets into civil war and suddenly you've got different groups eyeing this very large well-equipped professional army, probably the largest and best army left on that side of the front at this point, and the White loyalists want them out and the Red revolutionaries want to force them to stay and fight for them until both sides change their minds at various points. To which the army says "fuck that" and proceeds to take over the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Yes, that railroad. The one that runs from Moscow in the West allllllll five-fucking-thousand-something miles to the Pacific Ocean. Did I mention the army had some 70,000+ people? This was an army army. And they made it! The Allies provided a fleet of transport vessels, picked them up in Eastern Russia, ferried them across the Pacific, transported them across the US, ferried them across the Atlantic, and then transported them to their new homeland in what was then Czechoslovakia (and is now the Czech Republic and Slovakia).
And this train ride is what Last Train Home is about. It's an awesome mix of building up your train to keep everybody alive, gathering resources, and doing a number of missions tactically commanding a team in combat. It's got neat stuff like being able to help local civilians as additional objectives. Of course it's not historically perfect, but it's highly atmospheric and does feature the major points of history like how the Czechoslovakian Army was betrayed by the Russian factions at least once each, but neither side was strong enough to contest the Legion.
Overall it's an impressively good game about a historical event I had never even heard of despite being one of the most interesting events related to WWI (I'm from the US so we only get the "'Merica!" version of history in school, wherein nobody else does anything worthwhile except 'Merica!). It's realistic enough that there was even an attempt to ban its sale in Russia for disagreeing with state history, which should give an idea of where the game falls on the "truth versus story" spectrum.
Why.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/297490/Spy_Chameleon__RGB_Agent/
My hype pitch: Lolo x Metal Gear in a PS2 era candy shell
Swapper
https://store.steampowered.com/app/231160/The_Swapper/
Platformer puzzler
Marlow Briggs
https://store.steampowered.com/app/249680/Marlow_Briggs_and_the_Mask_of_Death/
Epic action
Steam ID: Good Life
Shady Knight - Dark Messiah of Might and Magic meets Dustforce?, Neon White? with a splash of Devil May Cry/Bayonetta. Look at this sick trailer!
Everything in this trailer is just someone playing the game normally! You're just constantly doing cool stuff while playing!!!
that's the neon white / dustforce connection in my mind, but i don't really know what to call that - speedrun games? but it's not *really* a speedrun game, you just have the leaderboard there if you want to be insane (and actually one of my 'complaints' about shady knight is that it doesn't have a medal system like neon white, where you can compete against the developer instead of having to compare yourself to the absolutely cracked sickos online)
Ah, Pseudoregalia is quite solid. Very good movement - I know we're used to PS1-looking games controlling like tanks with spiked treads, but Pseudoregalia runs smooth as butter, genuinely one of the better 3D movements I've tried. It's fairly short and easy but very enjoyable and *absolutely* worth it for its low price.
(Also anyone for whom the main character being a furry OC is a downside should consider a little less cowardice in their life, if you ask me!)
Naw but really. There are game events tied to it mechanically and narratively. Part of the gameplay is figuring out the how and why.
It's not a hardcore game or
A Short Hike: gorgeous and very chill exploration game. It’s unstoppably cheery and just a wonderful time.
Firewatch: neat mystery game set in the woods in Wyoming. You are a park ranger tasked with being a lookout for forest fires, and weird shit is happening. Pretty short and well executed.
Max and the Curse of Brotherhood: this was a cool platformer I found on Games with Gold a long time ago. You can manipulate wind/water/vines and use it to get across various levels to rescue your brother.
Sayonara Wild Hearts: possibly the weirdest game I’ve played in a while, it’s very surreal and has a kickass soundtrack.
Edit: Honorable mention, Celeste is an absolutely incredible platformer with great movement, great story, great music, and a great challenge to boot. Not really obscure but I will always sing it’s praises.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
There is a sidequest in pathologic 2 that made me seriously wonder if the game had been tapping into my microphone the entire time
Im fairly certain it doesn't
Fairly certain
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I've got A Short Hike on my wishlist despite finishing it on gamepass. Mostly because I want to throw some money at the developer, partly just to replay sometime. Super charming, and soundtrack to match. Same story with Unpacking. And TOEM.
Yes, it's a high school otome dating sim where all the hot boys are literal non-metaphorical birds.
It is also legitimately good, has some really fun writing in it, and the secret final route (unlocked by dating ALL the boys, of course) is a real banger.
Metamorphosis, which is as accurate to the Kafka book as Dante’s Inferno is to the Kafka book. But you get to play a cockroach and wander around weird surreal landscapes. Currently 80% off on Steam.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
The sequel to OFDP is also good.
With full 16 color Enhanced Graphics Adaptor (EGA) graphics, these graphics will be some of the best you've ever seen*:
*Statement only applicable to the blind.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1220150/Blue_Fire/
My review from a couple years back:
The good:
* A good 3D platforming game for PC comes out once every few years. This is one of them.
* The control is very precise; the game might ask you to jump between very small crumbling platforms in midair, but this works a lot better than you might think.
* Some of these levels are extremely large, which I appreciate.
* There's some nice Hollow Knight inspirations in the aesthetics.
The bad:
* There's a few instances where you'll activate a lever, then have X seconds to get through a platforming challenge. This works fine; the issue is that if you mess up and want to restart early, it works like "Hit lever, cutscene showing door at the end closing plays. Hit lever again, cutscene showing door at the end opening plays." Those cutscenes are a bit too long, and get old by the second or third time you see them.
* The game is overly linear. It opens up a bit at the end, where you get a choice of two whole areas you can go through in any order, but that's about it. Otherwise, it's going to the new area that just opened up, beating it, and getting a key to the next area.
* There's no map, which gets a bit weird since a few characters might refer to something being to the North, for example.
The difficulty:
There are a few different pieces of the game, and I'll talk about each one in turn:
* The combat was a bit annoying to get the hang of; even after completing the game, I still felt like I was just brute-forcing my way through the combat instead of gaining any sort of mastery. (And it feels like the combat could be mastered.) On the other hand, healing items are easy to acquire, and spending a few thousand coins on extra healing slots will sort you out for the entire game. So I got hit a lot in combat, but then just healed that right back again.
* The bosses are, honestly, fine. Again, you have access to a good stock of healing, so I got through most of them on my first try, albeit with substantial healing; there's no expectation that you'll take a few tries to figure out the boss first. The bosses I died on were more due to trying to leave the healing to the last minute than anything else. Even the final boss went down first try, and I had trouble figuring out a couple attacks.
* The platforming in the main game is more difficult than in most platforming games, but it's not *that* bad.
* The platforming in the void challenges gets significantly more difficult than in the main game; you'll be going through areas that resemble a 3D Meat Boy level, and there's never quite enough checkpoints. However, these are optional. They do give you an extra heart each, but the only reward for completing all of them is cosmetic. If you skip over the hardest 4-5, you'll still be in fine shape combat-wise, while cutting out some of the hardest platforming the game has on offer. (Though even the void challenges aren't as bad as they look, and you're not out anything other than time if you attempt them and fail a few dozen times.)
There's also free DLC that has a bunch of hard platforming challenges.
Dungeons of Dreadrock (puzzle, I guess).
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1896880/Dungeons_of_Dreadrock/
My review from a few years back:
This mostly works. The biggest issue is that this is a bit of a weird combination where I can solve a puzzle but fail on the execution a few times, or get stuck on a level because I didn't notice a hidden element. And I'm not just talking about loose bricks in the wall, but, for example, scripting on enemies that cause them to do something unexpected. Someone looking for a puzzle game would want an undo option, more discoverability, and a more generous attitude towards timing, while someone looking for a dungeon crawl will find a puzzle game. The controls also have issues. A controller isn't quite precise enough, while the keyboard controls are weird. (You can only remap joystick buttons, not keyboard.) This is originally a mobile game, and I'm blaming the controls on that.
On the plus side, the hint system is excellent, proceeding from general hints to a step by step guide on how to actually solve the level, so even when the game gets a bit cryptic you're unlikely to get stuck.
And All Would Cry Beware!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1071510/And_All_Would_Cry_Beware/
My review from earlier this year:
The story, told in collectable logs, is good. In combination with the general vibe of the map, it reminds me of a sci-fi short story from the 80s or earlier, based on the exploration of an unknown world filled with the weirdest stuff the author could think up.
In the end, it's very much an indie game, but it's cheap, not that difficult, and quick to play through.
Hand of Doom
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1924400/Hand_of_Doom/
It actually works, though? It's more an adventure game than a dungeon crawler, and never really gets frustrating, thanks to being developed this millennium by people who actually know what they are doing.
Some others I don't see a review for:
Dungeon Warfare (1 and 2, but start with 1): Basically a 2D Orcs Must Die game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/355980/Dungeon_Warfare/
Supraland: 3D Metroidvania taking place in a sandbox. Literally. Cool environment, and it uses the Metroidvania elements extremely well. Haven't played the followups yet, but they exist.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/813630/Supraland/
Escape Goat 2
https://store.steampowered.com/app/255340/Escape_Goat_2/
Charming pixel puzzler, with a difficulty that feels just right. 1 is good also, but 2 is just a lot more.
The Momodora games, specifically Reverie Under The Moonlight, Moonlit Farewell, and the spinoff Minoria.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/428550/Momodora_Reverie_Under_The_Moonlight/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1747760/Momodora_Moonlit_Farewell/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/940910/Minoria/
Pixel Metroidvanias. A tad horny, but nowhere near as much as the Shantae games or recent other genre entries that went well overboard. Good game feel, excellent art, good music, quick completion times (with bonus challenges available if you dig them).
Doronko Wanko
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2512840/DORONKO_WANKO/
Become a Pom, destroy your owner's house mischievously. It is actually free, and not "free" in the way a lot of games are (with ads or gacha or whatever).
The FAR series, Lone Sails and Changing Tides
https://store.steampowered.com/app/609320/FAR_Lone_Sails/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1570010/FAR_Changing_Tides/
2D games where your protagonist uses a cumbersome but powerful vehicle (a truck of sorts in the first game, a boat/sub in the second) to travel a long distance, alone (hence, FAR). Puzzle games, but pretty gentle about it, it's much more about flow state and experiencing the world/imagining what's been happening in it.
Holocure
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2420510/HoloCure__Save_the_Fans/
Probably the least obscure game here, but it's the even more unhinged fan game version of Vampire Survivors. Where VS has focused on insane numbers of characters and new weapons, Holocure is full of fan service for very distinct characters who have a more distinct and unique playstyle compared to any VS characters. And also entire sub games as bonus content, such as a Jump King style tower and an Animal Crossing style hub with fishing and farming. This is also free.
Cloudpunk has you playing as a futuristic delivery driver. You spend the majority of the game in your taxi but you can get out and explore on foot as well. Voxel graphics but that never bothered me.
Dodgeball Academia is a shounen style game about going to a school for dodgeball. People get super powers and the characters take it way to seriously.
Banner of the Maid stars a young woman fresh out of military school and assigned her first role as a leading officer during Napoleonic France. The game is actually pretty fucking hard which is maybe why it didn't get that much traction because damn is it cool. I am not an expert at that historical era but from my POV they did a decent job slotting this into the real life military conflicts of the time. The combat is similar to final fantasy tactics, except the units have fixed classes. Although you can upgrade and customize them into a higher tier of class they cannot change at that point.
Kaichu is a dating sim for Kaiju. It's really simplistic and mostly just a short, cute, goofy time but it's also pretty cheap so why not.
I would also second the Sayonara Wild Hearts suggestion. Very cool game and the soundtrack is awesome.
PSN:Furlion
Banner of the Maid looks like it pulls a lot from Langrisser(armies fighting once the unit attacks).
Thomas Was Alone is a masterclass of storytelling through narration.
The entire game is just controlling different colored shapes with different special abilities, but the narration gives all of them their own personalities and hopes and dreams.
It was very satisfying, and I highly recommend it.
There aren't actually armies. You're controlling individual characters and the troops shown during attacks are just representing the unit's HP.
People don't even remember Red Dead Revolver
3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00
Just so long as they remember Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, the greatest cowboy game of all time.
I'm 90% sure melee weapons in Lunacid are just doing a single line trace of an appropriate distance for your weapon straight out from your on-screen crosshair and seeing if you hit something relevant, no collision or anything for the weapon, accidentally place your cursor under an armpit and you miss completely with your greatsword.
Obviously help is help when you're working on a game, but it still stuck out to me that that was the contribution since those two things are what I'd consider the somewhat underwhelming part of Kira's games (with the good parts being 'pretty much everything else').
https://www.jydge.com/
The website seems to imply that the game is never coming back in the original form, but they're basically doing a 1.5 remake with new stuff in it to avoid whatever issues they were having. The new game will be called JYSTICE
3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00
Yeah, that's also kind of how Langrisser does it.
The rumor seems to be that they were threatened with a lawsuit for being too close to Judge Dredd. But I'm a little skeptical, as I don't think they're that similar.
Which one did I play (or play the demo of [from a magazine disc] on my PS1) back in the day?
You play a leccy stationed on a Scottish oil rig in the 70s. Shit goes down when the site manager pushes the crew to drill too greedily and too deep.
It's extremely linear, but the amount of detail put into the world is fantastic. Every area of the game feels lived in, functional, like it's there for a purpose and not just a level in a game. The sound design is deeply unsettling and haunting even before things go sideways, but also isn't afraid to just sit in moments of quiet sometimes.
The VA is superb and, being almost entirely a Scottish cast, doesn't shy away from leaning right into Scots in the dialogue.
The horror elements are not really anything new or groundbreaking, but are paced nicely and do contribute to some pretty neat (and honestly gorgeous imo) setpieces.
Probably one of my favourite games of the year that I've seen almost zero reception for.
Steam ID - VeldrinD
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver are the only ones that came out on ps1:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/2207/blood-omen-legacy-of-kain/
https://www.mobygames.com/game/1525/legacy-of-kain-soul-reaver/