Games

Check out Caves Of Qud. Is a super well developed rogue like(lite?), kinda feels like a crazy mix of dwarf fortress, dark souls, and morrowind.

Takes a bit to figure out what the heck is going on, what it wants from you, and how to stop dying brutally to the most simple things, but once you get your toes into it it feels like it has massive potential for exploration and story building.

It has some modes that are more forgiving, but dying in this game is weirdly satisfying in a way I can't describe, I'm not even usually interested in rogue lites but this one is amazing.

It will also run on a potato which is fantastic

Cataclysm on Lemmy? Hell yeah, shout out to Rycon one of like 3 total Cataclysm content creators. As for obscure games I've played...

I guess it's more of a sub genre but the rhythm + other game genre like for example the most popular being Hi-Fi Rush and Crypt of the Necrodancer. But have you heard of Metal Hellsinger or BPM: Bullets Per Minute? All excellent games in my opinion that take a game genre like in BPM's case the rougelike genre and changes things up by mixing it in with rhythm game mechanics.

Levelhead is essentially the "Mario Maker on PC" people have been begging for and it released with 0 fanfare. The game is amazing and the devs put a lot of effort into it (including a ~10 hour campaign) but it just never got that many players.

There's still a ton of fantastic levels and a semi-active community, the game is a lot of fun, but in terms of most underrated games it's definitely up there.

Probably Ultima ratio regum, found it on tig source, I have no idea how to actually play it, but it's got big ambitions and is already pretty impressive. https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=22176.0

Shadows of Forbidden Gods - a map-based strategic game where you play as an Old God seeking to destroy the world. You mostly interact with the world through your agents and the forces of good will seek to stop you so you need to sow chaos and strife in the world, cause war, plague, famine and death to keep heroes occupied until you bring about the end.

The UI is... not good. But the game ends up being really fun anyway and there is a good payoff of seeing long laid plans come to fruition.

Vagrus - The Riven Realms.

Essentially it's Oregon Trail game in fantasy world. But effectively, it consists of many different genres. There's caravan management, choice making, strategy, tactical combat, profit making, cRPG... It's highly complicated, challenging but also very fun.

I just played through Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and it was really good. Sold less than 500k copies. Fuck the entire catacombs though.

I love that game! I even got my son to enjoy it too. I prefer to play in curses though.

The most recent game I've been playing is Ghosts of Tabor. I've been enjoying VR lately quite a lot. For example: https://youtu.be/-3N9q06petk

I feel like Dominions 5 might fit. It’s a pretty niche game; very deep, but I don’t know too many others that play it.

TIS-100. I saw a friend play it and got it shortly afterwards. Essentially, you have a bunch of small compute units with a few available instructions each that can pass data to adjacent ones and have to solve "puzzles", which are essentially assembly programming assignments. Despite the game being rather new, distributed e.g. via steam and gog, all you get is a full screen console line interface to code in. I love it.

Suzerain, probably. It's a political visual novel where you play as the newly elected President of a country called Sordland and have to lead it through your first term. Time period is early-Cold War, and the country is recovering after a period of civil war and instability.

It's got some basic strategy mechanics, and is extremely choice heavy. But at the end of the day, it's a visual novel, and gameplay consists exclusively of reading and choosing from a series of offered choices. It nails that, though. If you like processing through really difficult choices as a video game thing, this game does it better than almost any other.

On par with The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante.

Not sure if it was obscure in the past, but the present day player base is miniscule. Everquest. I spent 7 hours to get 2 levels.

I've been playing a sailing simulator lite game called Sailwind. The gist of it is that you get missions to transport cargo to either nearby islands in your archipelago group or to another archipelago far away with your sailboat. It teaches the basics of sailing a purely sail driven boat and astral/solar navigation. Really fun for a chill boat game.

Grats!

Super hydelide, what a ride

I’ve been playing through Anchorhead, a text-based game from the late 90s that got a reboot in 2018. It’s fun and my first time really going through a text-based game.

Xonotic ? I don't know if it's obscure but try to talk about it with a friend, he will look at you like you were a sort of FOSS witch

A lesser known sequel to a cult classic, I've been playing through Apollo Justice, part of the Ace Attorney series. When I was a kid and really enjoyed Phoenix Wright I never continued on to Apollo Justice purely because I was put off of playing this other character.

It really is a sequel and continuation of the Ace Attorney series and I hope to go on to play the Miles Edgeworth Investigations series after this one.

Kentucky Route Zero would probably classify as obscure. It's not really a game, to be honest, more of a point-and-click exploration visual novel.

What do I like so much about the game and what makes it unique? Well, I personally love games that are immersive and make me feel the experience. And this particular game is probably the closest out there in terms of making you feel like you are in a dream. It's a very weird concept, I know, but it is the only way I can describe it.

The story itself starts with a man named Conway, who is driving a delivery for Lisette's Antiques - the last one, as the store will close forever soon. As he asks a gas station attendant for the way, he is directed to Kentucky highway zero. This road is unlike a regular road, as it goes through the caves underneath the surface, and navigating it is another matter entirely. On his way, he meets several strange people.

The story is about being lost, loss, debt, and camaraderie. How it goes is mostly set in stone, but you do influence some of the world around you as the player. I think most gamers are probably interested in obscure mechanics rather than stories, and this game lacks actual "game" mechanics. So it is certainly not for everyone. However, it is among my favourites in terms of story/experience, and I'm not the only one that enjoys it.