Actual Hidden Gems on Steam

Hieracosphinx@beehaw.org to Gaming@beehaw.org – 345 points –

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!

False Skies - 37 Reviews

  • 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.

Hyperspace Delivery Service - 37 Reviews

  • 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.

Treasures of the Aegean - 57 Reviews

  • Imagine if Tomb Raider was a 2D metroidvania and had a timeloop mechanic. That’s this game. The parkour system feels great too.

DIG - Deep in Galaxies - 79 Reviews

  • 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.

Star Drift Evolution - 169 Reviews

  • 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.

Prodigal - 182 Reviews

  • 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.

Intergalactic Fishing - 211 Reviews

  • 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.

Elsinor - 235 Reviews

  • 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.

RITE - 251 Reviews

  • 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.

Ctrl Alt Ego - 350 Reviews

  • 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.

The Eternal Cylinder - 383 Reviews

  • This is like Spore, but even weirder and there’s a cylinder that’s going to kill your aliens.

ADACA - 449 Reviews

  • 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.

Legend Bowl - 723 Reviews

  • 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.

Environmental Station Alpha - 1046 Reviews

  • 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.

Heaven's Vault - 1410 Reviews

  • 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.

Northern Journey - 1453 Reviews

  • 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.
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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?

Adding some from my library

  • Dropsy - 1329 Reviews

    • A weird point and click with nice atmosphere. The soundtracks are neat too.

  • The Blackwell Legacy - 1122 Reviews

    • The Blackwell series are point and click games about ghosts. It's cool to see familiar characters through out the series and how they change (or unchanged) .

  • Railroad Ink Challenge - 65 Reviews

    • It's the digital version of a puzzle board game I highly recommend. High re-play value and fun to play solo or with friends. (The digital version should be solo only but you can compete with online leader boards)

Railroad Ink Challenge looks really interesting. Thanks for sharing!

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Not sure if I would consider it a gem but this game gave me a good chuckle: Genital Jousting is currently on sale for 69 cents.

69¢, Nice. That had to be intentional.

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.

ΔV: Rings of Saturn
https://store.steampowered.com/app/846030/V_Rings_of_Saturn

A hard sci-fi 2D space mining sim.
"A physics-based mining sim, set in the thickest debris field in Sol. Every action has a reaction, lasers are invisible without a medium, and your thrust is a potent weapon. Find trade, adapt your equipment to your playstyle, hire a crew to help. Unravel the mysteries of the rings, or just get rich."

The Age of Decadence is CRPG set in a post-apocalypse ish, in which an analogue to the Roman Empire ruled most of the world until the collapse of civilisation, now it’s mostly city states struggling to survive and reclaim the old magitek of the empire.

Underrail: Life on earth’s surface has been made inhospitable ages ago, and the remains of humanity now live in the metro system called underrail and the caverns around it.

Both are isometric, turn based games that focus on combat and exploration. And they are hard. Builds are incredibly important, almost min maxing but they have a wide range of viable builds, especially the first one where you can play the entire game without fighting a single battle, all through alternative solutions and skill checks.

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.

No actually, I didn't knew it was a thing. Added to my wishlist for when it's released.

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.

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.

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.

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

Does Cogmind count? Because even when I see people discussing games like it, which are already pretty niche, it never comes up. That's tragic, because oh my god, just read some of these articles. This developer is obsessive and even if you don't get too deep into Cogmind it's an incredible toy to just screw around with and just see what happens.

The visuals with that game are so impressive for what it is. It's like they captured particle effects in 2D.

Second this, great game! One of the best modern traditional roguelike games right now.

I really love sunless sea and sunless skies. They are so beautiful and story rich. Extremely simple game mechanics. You basically explore an unknown map, uncover the story, make choices and allegiances and do your best to survive.

I personally found Sunless Sea to get boring after a while to the point of giving up on it. I think DREDGE might be more appealing, though I haven't played it: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1562430/DREDGE/

DREDGE is great, and does overlap with Sunless Seas in some ways, but is nowhere near as story driven (or weird). That said, it's a lot easier/more forgiving, and has a simpler (and potentially more engaging) main gameplay loop.

I love the Sunless/Fallen London setting, and really wish Seas had some of the improvements of Skies, as I think I prefer the setting of Seas, but I've found it hard to go back to, having played Skies.

Here are two 3D platformers I haven't really heard a lot of but still had very fun with last year.

Demon Turf - 335 Reviews What pulled me in initially was the art syle, the games looks a bit like the cartoons from my childhood. This one got combat, exploration, bosses, collectables. A bit of a problem is that the game tried to do a lot of things at the same time, resulting in a bit uneven quality overall. There are also leaderboards if you into speedrunning.

Demon Turf: Neon Splash - 105 Reviews Some kind of standalone DLC/spinoff to the first game. In this game everything is more streamlined and the design feels more focused. Combat have been cut in order to give the platforming more time to shine and a reason to simplify the controls. The focus is on repeating the same levels for better a time on the leaderboard. Speedrunning is not really my thing but I still found enjoyment in the game. Much cheaper and short than Demon Turf.

I can recommend NEO Scavenger (slightly under 4k reviews). It's hardcore survival game in post apocalypse world. I haven't finished it yet, 'cause I always die in the process. Still very enjoyable if you're into post-apo.

Terrible interface, but if someone appreciates roguelikes (technically not one, but much of the same DNA) that shouldn't be enough to turn people away from a great game.

Thanks for the list, a few games really caught my eye.

Here is my contribution - Tametsi

A minesweeper which has hand-crafted levels so you can always solve it with logic instead of relying on luck when you are out of logical moves.

RUINER: Isometric twin-stick shooter with a 10/10 soundtrack. Basically zero advertisement, i only ever found out about it because I listen to similar music and got the soundtrack reccomended to me by the YT algorithm.

Oh I keep seeing this being recommended to me. How does it compare to The Ascent?

The Ascent is a longer game and leans harder into RPG elements than Ruiner ever does. For me, Ruiner ran better and like @Catastrophic235@midwest.social 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.

I still remember the Dropsy thread on SomethingAwful. Crazy that it turned into an actual game!

Never played the ascent but heard it was meh. Controls for Ruiner were pretty tight, my only complaint is that I'd sometimes get caught on an object/wall that wasn't very easy to see, but it was never more than a minor inconvenience.

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!

Hexceed is free, lite Hexcells, I read, if you want to try before you buy.

I bought Tametsi recently based at another recommendation thread. It's really good - it eliminates the big issue with minesweeper which is that sometimes you have to guess. In Tametsi you always have enough information for your next move which completely changes how it feels. It almost ends up feeling more like Sudoku with the "ok so if that's true then that can't be true" type steps in logic.

English Country Tune (153 reviews)

Fantastic super hard puzzle game from the person who would later create the more well known (and equally amazing) Stephens Sausage Roll (1001 reviews).

Both are graphically very basic but mechanically incredible and really well designed!

I recently watched my friend beat stephen’s sausage roll, a game that I have not been able to beat in 10 years. That game is bonkers hard. My arbitrary guess is that the number of people who have beaten the game is under 5,000. If anyone is looking for a puzzle game that will make your brain hurt, that is the game for you.

This is a great list and these all look amazing. Thank you for taking the time to compile it and share!

Neodori Forever - 46 reviews (Positive) is also part of the Summer Sale!

I just picked this up and it's a fun and vibrant, pixel graphics, arcade style drifting game. There's a 'story' mode followed by an endless mode to keep you busy and the soundtrack made its way onto my playlist. I don't have a Steam Deck, but it seems like it'd be a good fit.

I'm just here to +1 Northern Journey. I couldn't put this game down once I started. It's weird AF, and I loved it utterly.

Love this thread, finally some real hidden gems! Gonna check out DIG - Deep in Galaxies and Ctrl Alt Ego.

Warsim deserves love. It's a real passion project: a text-based kingdom management sim with lots of things to do and nooks and crannies to explore.

Creeper World. It’s technically a tower defense, but the enemy is fluid, constantly pouring out of spawn area. And the game has a pretty good story line.

I can lose hours in those games. I didn't enjoy 2 very much but 1 and 3 are great!

Used to play the original back in the days of flash.

I highly highly cannot more highly recommend Observation. It's $7 right now.

It's a unique story game, with an excellent narrative, pace, and conclusion.

I very strongly second this recommendation, especially for those who know they like space horror in general. Or for people who like FMV. Or AI stories - you play as an AI in this.

The one caveat is: this game relies on point-and-click type interaction, and it does a TERRIBLE job of indicating which items in any scene are interactable/important. There will inevitably be some time spent clicking around to see f x y or z is something you can interact with. This is super annoying.

BUT the rest of the game is amazing so it's very worth putting up with UI issue, imo.

Star Valor looks cool as hell. I can't actually run it, since it's Windows-only, but one of y'all might like it. If you liked the classic Escape Velocity games or endless-sky, this looks similar.

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.

Do you know of anything like this for the switch? I'm a late comer to handhelds since I developed some shoulder problems and can't really PC game anymore.

I used to love a game called transcendence back when it was a free alpha. Top down, open world, semi-roguelike, big focus on combat with satisfying 2d physics and lots of ship customization. Less focus on trading and world interaction stuff.

I've looked at a couple you guys mentioned, but I'm really trying to find something that'll scratch that 2d space combat itch on a handheld.

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!

If you have an android, there are two games that did a great job with 2d space combat and trading - spacerpg3 and spacerpg4. 3 is definitely inspired by EV Override, while 4 is very much its own thing.

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried spacerpg4 but it hasn't held my attention as much as I hoped.

I did find an android port of star control 2, and that is some good stuff. Really scratched the 90 gaming itch too.

Star Trader Frontiers is also available on Android and iOS and is pretty good.

I have played all of those except for Ur-Quan. I didn't like the combat or trade mechanics in Naev, but the storyline and the planet art is cool. I played endless-sky a lot, but at this point I just want to see the main storyline for it finished, but that will have to wait until MZ has the time to dedicate to it again. I have starsector, but it looks more complex than I would like.

___ Acid Spy ___

Acid Spy is a first person stealth action game set in a cyberpunk universe. Infiltrate heavily guarded bases and take down your enemies with skill and finesse. Master the art of quick, deadly stealth to become the acid spy.

Lingo (109 reviews) - A word puzzler with inspirations from Antichamber and The Witness. This has taken several sessions of getting the gang together to work on it, and after 20 hours, we still have more to do!

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.

I'd love to contribute with Vision Soft Reset, with 78 reviews.

A metroidvania with time travel elements, you are a robot that can see the future investigating a planet, every time you save it creates a vertice in a timeline tree where you can jump around. I wish it was more ambitious but with the small team and budget, it did what it wanted pretty well, with my critique being a lack of polish in a few areas.

This title is in at least one of the past years' gigantic itch.io charity bundles, for those who may have picked up some of those.

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

Shout out to Fishery (309 reviews). It's pretty niche as an aquarium simulator, but very relaxing and well made.

Also, Ozymandias (770 reviews) is a great strategy game that manages to squeeze the feeling of a full game of civilization into less than one hour.

If you're interested in classic board games, The Conquest of Go (397 reviews) is a great entry point into Go, with nice tutorial features and a campaign mode that scales difficulty as you win games.

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.

Stealth Bastard Deluxe - 628 reviews - currently $1 - released 2012

  • 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.

AaAaAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity - 625 reviews - currently $2 - released 2009

  • 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.

Space Tyrant is a 4x space conquest game, but it plays like a fast paced solo board game or adventure. Fun balance between strategy and random space goofiness.

Thanks for the list, very intrigued by Ctrl Alt Ego being an immersive sim fan

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!

Boundless

This is probably my favorite game, it's going through a rough patch right now because development had halted for about a year and was then sold to another company last year who are still in the process of transferring everything over. I'm hoping for new development within another year because it's an awesome game, but it's been stagnant for a long time. It's not on sale, but they've discussed a lower price for it openly after they get things rolling. We'll see.

Treasures of the Aegean looks kind of beautiful in the first trailer. And there's a demo to try? Looks like that's what I'm doing next.

I played the demo and IDK. It feels a little finicky and I want to like it but it just didn't make me feel like I need to pay to keep playing.

You know of any other Oregon Trail remixes? Been looking for a game like those ever since I was a little kid.

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'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.

shipped a local multiplayer naval game Overall Reviews: Overwhelmingly Positive (523 reviews) : I had a lot of fun playing this game with my sist er and cousin.
seems like my previous comment didn't get posted

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.

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.