/games/ - Video Games

NEO Scavenger

Wasteland survival game with permadeath

Teleglitch

Top down, quake/doom & roguelike inspired twitch shooter.

A Legionary's Life

Empires of the Undergrowth

Ant colony strategy game

Airships: Conquer the skies

The Drift 1879

Last stand against the Zulus with the British army.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rorke's_Drift

Caves of Qud

One of the best roguelike. Complex character creation, strategic gameplay, engaging world.

You can play a mutated human and get meaningful starting abilities. To play successfully mainly try to get abilities & tools that augment each other.

There are some really good abilities, like precognition where you can play several turns into the future.

Lots and lots of good stuff.

>>46924
that's a cool game

Duskers

Roguelike survival game where you pilot drones via console-like commands and scavenge resources on abandoned space hulks in a universe seemingly devoid of any other human life, with random text logs that you find unveiling bits & pieces of the mystery of where they all vanished to.

Played it a number of years ago, but I recall really enjoying it. These are pretty much the only sorts of rogue-likes I tend to enjoy, frankly. Still would've preferred it if it had been a more story-centric level by level experience instead of a rogue-like, though.

Much of my love/hate relationship of the rogue genre can be better described here >>>/games/46079 not that anyone really gives a shit.

>>46924

Hmmm, this looks interesting. Kinda reminds me of SanctuaryRPG though, which I didn't particularly care for.

UnderRail

Old school turn-based isometric indie role playing game in the same vein of the Fallout series, except set completely underground.

Haven't played this one just yet, but I've been intending to. A major expansion was just released for it, I believe.

Quern: Undying Thoughts

Modern Myst clone that, personally speaking, I found to be a helluva a lot better than Cyan's somewhat recent release, that being Obduction. Puzzles were way better designed and much more respectful of the player's time, as opposed to Obduction and all the stupid teleporting around you're required to do.

Darkwood

Top-down, story-centric survival game with Stalker -like atmosphere, set in a spooky & dangerous forest with strange monsters & characters of all sorts. Combat's a bit clunky, but I had a good time with it. Having to constantly stand around in your shelter and wait out the night can get to be a little tedious, though.

>>46938
>>46939
>>46940
>>46941

These are awesome.

Played some Darkwood and the atmosphere is excellent.

>>46939
Ive shilled this one a bit on this board. Yeah it’s quite good, great combat, crafting and exploration and the writing and universe are surprisingly interesting. It’s no fallout but it more than makes up for it in actual gameplay and character building and so forth.
It suffers from xen syndrome though, the last level is not very good imo and can be extremely punishing for some builds, but there are people who did enjoy it.

For people who like point and click games, Machinarium and Botanicula are both very good. The puzzles aren't that complex and they are fairly short games, but I enjoyed getting lost in their worlds for a few hours.
>>46918
This looks very interesting I will have to try it.

Pathologic 2

I don't even know the genre. Its some russian psycholgical horror RPG story driven bizzarro skyrim.

This game is different and does things that I have never seen anywhere else. The atmosphere is suffocating. Everything is like a theatrical play.

First it makes no sense, but there is structure and meaning to the weird characters. The white faced NPCs for example are like breaking the 4th wall of the theatrical play and speak about the inner thoughts of the characters in the play. Its hard to explain.

The game is amazing.

Deadbolt

Really great Hotline Miami-esque experience, from the same guy who made Gunpoint. Has a superbly comfy soundtrack as well.

Mr. Shifty, ApeOut, Ruiner, & Redeemer are also some other fairly decent HM clones as well.

Doorkickers

Top-down tactics game, with a SWAT aesthetic. Allows you to plan out each step of movement of your team & every included action therein, in a rather comprehensive manner. Been meaning to re-visit it at some point, actually, since I got max stars in each single mission, but never bothered to do any of the campaigns. Perma-death isn't recommended given how certain squirrely things will tend to happen, at least when I played it (friendly AI missing shots, wonky lines of sight, getting sniped out of the blue, etc.)

Vaporum

Steampunk Legends of Grimrock, which itself could also be included in this thread. There's no party system like in Grimrock & there's a heavier emphasis on the story, playing with a voiced protagonist & all that. You can pick which mechanical rig you want at the beginning of the game, which essentially dictates which build you want (tanky warrior, speedy rogue, ranged based spell caster, etc.). The pause feature I thought was a wonderful addition for this sort of game and also makes it somewhat turn based, since time only moves when you commit to an action, whether that's moving or attacking. Also wasn't a fan of how many enemies the game throws at you since you often end up being gang raped from all sides or against a wall, far more than what you would find in Grimrock. Still a really great game, though. Guns are also a lot more viable & varied than they were in LoG2, just as a comparison, which I appreciated. Some of the spells, or gadgets as they are referred to, are also quite neat as well and synergize with the grid based movement.

Ghost of a Tale

A charming little adventure where you take the role of an adorable little minstrel named Tilo, as he tries to navigate the dangerous castle he finds himself unjustly imprisoned in & to ultimately discover the whereabouts of his lost wife.

Reminded me a lot of Redwall, assuming any of you know what that is, what with the similar medieval setting, mousey protagonist, random assortment of talking animals with period accurate garb, and giant evil rats. It's essentially a stealth game with puzzle elements, while also providing a small open world to explore & complete quests in. Some of these quests can be a little obtuse & have some rather ridiculously well hidden items you're expected to find, but, by & large, they're pretty straightforward. There's also different outfits & disguises you can wear to not only get around more easily, but to augment what Tilo himself can do. Story-wise, it was quite actually wholesome & touching & I found myself being engaged by it. It's also got some interesting lore & adjoining tidbits to help flesh out the greater world itself, which was also neat.

When you discover what happened to Tilo's son through Silas's confession (one of your only allies) of him having been unable to save Tilo's son & also being partly responsible for his death, I couldn't help, but feel bad for the little guy. The ending was nothing, but sequel-bait though, which disappointed me, especially given how unlikely a potential sequel will be.

>>46991

>from the same guy who made Gunpoint.

Ahh, my mistake. It was actually by the guy who made Risk of Rain. What a brain fart. Sorry about that. It's definitely quite aesthetically similar to Gunpoint, though.

Immortal Redneck & City of Brass

I really tend to be a sucker for first person rogue-likes and these two are, but a couple, out of a number of others, that I've gotten some real enjoyment out of. I believe Immortal Redneck was a bit lackluster when it first launched, but, when I played it, about a year after it had come out, it was quite good.

Monstrum, Delvers, Zigguart, & Eldritch are a few other decent first person rogues as well. Monstrum being especially neat.

Return of the Obra Dinn

Great puzzle game, with a very memorable look & fantastic sense of atmosphere. Process of elimination can make the game a little too easy at times, but its main gimmick of ascertaining the identity & cause of death of each crew member by jumping into a snapshot of the past frozen in time is pretty darn cool, the chaos taking place in some of them being quite breathtaking to look at. It's really satisfying when you notice a certain detail (like what a crew member is wearing, or not wearing as the case may be, cross referencing that with whom is standing next to whom in the group photo, or noticing a facial feature, like a scar) and be able to match that up with the correct individual. Again, the fact that the game automatically tells you when you manage to get 3 descriptions right makes it a bit easy to breeze through, but, even so, it still requires some investigating on the part of the player. Piecing together the story of what happened as you're filling out your descriptions, was also a fairly organic process as well, nothing being shoved in your face, or anything like that, which was nice.

The supernatural PotC aspect was also really cool I thought and enhanced the spookiness factor.

Frostpunk

This one might not be the best fit, but its definitely not AAA. Made by a small polish team: the guys known for This War of Mine.

This is a strategy game where you have to manage a city and ensure its survival in ever harsher conditions.

It has a steampunk setting where an ice age results in once great cities getting depopulated and their people migrating away.

>>46941
Damn I was thinking about playing it, I bought it but still didn't install.

>>46989
Does pathologic 2 have a dark atmospher? That desperate and hopeless feel I mean.

Overlord games, 1 Raising Hell and 2

Odallus - The Dark Call

Comfy indie platformer, heavily inspired by the likes of the original Castlevania. There's a bit of a metroidvania aspect to it as well, since each level can be re-entered again from the map screen, so as to allow you to explore for additional upgrades/hidden items once you acquire certain abilities. Can recall having a good time with this one overall. Even moreso on my second hard playthrough, which remixes where all the items/upgrades are, forcing you to approach things in a very different manner, as compared to normal difficulty.

Misamata

First person adventure game, with survival elements, where you find yourself alone on a vast, deserted island, and plagued with a deadly illness, finding a cure for it & staying alive being your main goal, all while trying to avoid a vicious, unknown beast that is stalking your every step.

It's not the best looking game around, but it has a very tranquil & unsettling atmosphere. In a rather neat little gimmick, you need to consistently triangulate your position with discovered landmarks in order to know where you are at any given time & fill in the map. Finding the cure itself is also a pretty involved task. Aside from some notes & journal entries you can find scattered around that hint as to where to look, it's pretty much left up to you to discover for yourself by researching all the various flora & fauna, some of which can be used to craft stuff like stamina enhancing, or sense enhancing pills. Anyway, the whole thing is almost Morrowind-ish in a sense and, aside from your encounters with the monster, has a pervading & palpable feeling of stillness & isolation. It's a bit rough around the edges certainly, but I'd recommend it if you're looking for a quiet & moody experience.

Having said that, I can still remember when I was walking along a beach in this game enjoying the scenery and that damn cat spawned literally right in front of my eyes, plopping right of thin air, making me fly just about right out of my chair. The wonky spawning of that thing wasn't enough to ruin the atmosphere for me, but it can definitely be a hassle to deal with. There might've actually been an option to disable the monster, but I can't quite recall for certain, unfortunately.

Zeno Clash 1 & 2

First person beat-em up set in a truly bizarre & foreign looking dream world. ACE Team, the developers behind this, have always made some pretty wacky games which, personally speaking, I've always tended to enjoy. The Zeno Clash games themselves are certainly a trip into the weird, with semi-unsettling shit like that androgynous, crone-like bird creature known as "Father Mother", just being the start of it. I can understand why some might not like the gameplay, but I thought it was quite satisfying & one of the few games that does first person fisticuffs well. You can also pick up & use other weapons like clubs & rifles/pistols, all of which being made of rock or bone, or some such similar material, giving the game an almost primordial, pre-historic tribal feel.

Rock of Ages 1 & 2

Just like the Zeno Clash games, Rock of Ages is also a really neat series created by ACE Team. What if Monty Python, specifically Terry Gilliam, created a video game? That's essentially the best way I could describe it. The tower defense mechanics, mixed with having to manually roll your giant boulder to attack, avoiding hazards & your own opponents defenses, is a great combination. Slamming straight into your enemies fort at full speed is a very satisfying experience. Lots of different boulders & towers to choose from, although elephants are OP as hell. The boss fights are also surprisingly novel & well done.

Witch Hunt

Supernatural hunting game, set in pilgrim era America. Played this last Halloween and was pleasantly surprised at how fun it was. It's pretty janky at times, but the almost Diablo 1 like eerieness of the setting really shined through regardless. Your home base, in the form of the local town, felt very much like a form of Tristram. Each time you manage to hunt & slay a new monster (of which there are only about 3-4, sadly), the town will even change & react to it, albeit only subtly. Hunting the monsters can be pretty tedious, since they have huge health bars and will often run away whenever you get close to them or attack them. I would've liked if there had been more of an emphasis on setting up traps, or laying down bait & waiting in a blind of some sort for an ambush. As it is, you just wander around & have to guess where the monster is, by looking through their eyes, ala Siren Blood Curse. There's a low budget charm to it, but I'd still really like to see more of this sort of thing. I'm aware of the "Hunt: Showdown", but it's not really the same thing, being MP only & all that.

Distrust

A fairly modest & unchallenging rogue-like that takes a crack at offering an experience similar to that of "The Thing". It doesn't particularly succeed in that sense, outside of providing a frigid environment you need to survive in, given that the monster(s), are about as far from the shape-shifting creature from "The Thing" as you can get. Whenever your characters sleep, alien monsters appear. That's about it. No aliens in disguise to worry about at all, which is a shame. Having said that, it's not a terrible rogue-like. Fun for one or two playthroughs and pretty easy to master.

Near Death

A very short first person survival game, set in the Antarctic. Only for those interested in a fairly brief, yet decent & tense experience. Reminded me a bit of Cryostasis, insofar as you need to constantly fight with the cold & such.

Brigador

Twin-stick shooter with a wide variety of mechs to choose from. Campaign's pretty short, but the gameplay is pretty solid while it lasts. Good destructibility to the environment as well, with you being able to plow or stomp through almost anything in your way.

The Painscreek Killings

First person adventure game, with investigative puzzle elements, where you find yourself in an abandoned town searching for clues & various other tidbits of information to uncover the truth behind an unsolved murder mystery. A surprisingly effective little game, where one bit of info will often guide you to another & another, in a successive chain of leads that end with you discovering new pieces of insight into the mystery, along with additional hints of where to go next. That's not to say that's how it always goes though, since sometimes, as with most puzzle games, you can get frustratingly stuck on how to proceed, but exploring will often yield results, assuming you're looking in the right place. One part I can recall personally pissing me off was how I missed picking up a shovel in one of the buildings and spent ages trying to find one after a note suggested to dig in a certain location, which even that, the dig spot itself, being practically invisible and you wouldn't be able to find the prompt for it unless you were just spamming the interact key over random terrain. Overall it's an okay experience though, that does an adequate job at making you feel like a snooping detective.

The ending is also rather unexpected, although not exactly in a good way, what with the sudden chase sequence that transpires out of the blue when the killer finally reveals himself. The ghost of the dead succubus showing up out of nowhere being additionally jarring. Cue Mr. Plinkett's, "Fuck off, ghost!"

Satellite Reign

Isometric RPG, in the same vein as the Syndicate series. Never played any of the old Syndicate games myself, but I still enjoyed this. The world is quite vibrant with streaks of neon & other forms of cyberpunk flair and is generally fun to explore. Being able to abduct & clone random citizens, or even enemies, for their better stats is a neat gimmick that I thought was kinda cool. All the different bases & outposts you can infiltrate for additional tech/upgrades/cash are a bit samey after a while, though. The game also tends to favor more of a stealth approach, as opposed to going in guns blazing, at least from what I can recall when I originally played/finished it, that is.

Threads like these are the reason I come here. So many great suggestions, thanks guys.

Any suggestions for more actiony games? Less RPG stuff would be nice.

Slain

Blasphemous

Butcher

>>47033

All these games are fairly actiony.

>>47021
>>47016
>>46996
>>46991
>>46916

>>47039

Hey, funny to see this here. I finished this not too long ago and really enjoyed it. Final boss was a little too simple to beat, but I positively loved that ending. It was also kinda easy to tell that it was originally a flash game, at least in some small ways.

That final shot of the Earth exploding & your character melting into lava like the terminator with its middle finger firmly erected in a mocking gesture at having completely exterminated the human race was just exquisite. Hatred was another game which I liked for this sort of thing as well.

Mother Russia Bleeds

Satisfying & brutally violent side-scrolling beat-em up. Has a nifty & useful dodge function, which I wish more beat-em ups, both old & new, would have chosen to implement as well.

Quadrilateral Cowboy

Short first person adventure, with some elements of hacking & use of various gadgetry. Has some okay missions & gimmicks.

Flotilla

Neat, yet disappointingly short rogue-like, with an interesting combat system where you need to anticipate where your opponent moves to before committing to an action. Also giving you a full range of true space-like 3D movement, ala Homeworld.

Battle Worlds: Kronos

Cool little turn based strategy game, that closely resembles the likes of Advance Wars & the old "Battle Isle" games. Decently sized campaign with a wide range of units & a good sense of challenge/variety. Would often listen to the soundtrack for AoE while I was playing/finishing it a couple years ago, which I found to be quite comfy.

Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi

First person action game, that almost passes as a pre-modern rogue-like. Fun, yet short game. Have posted about it before, as found here >>>/games/45383

The Sexy Brutale

Puzzle game, with a time traveling mechanic similar to that of Majora's Mask, where you repeat the same day over again in order to save all the guests & prevent certain things from occurring. Has a pretty decently somber story as well.

Hard West

Turn-based tactics game, with an XCOM-like combat system. Has multiple campaigns, each with their own distinct quirk & gimmick. I found the "luck" mechanic to be a particularly neat idea as well, being a resource that calculates your hit/miss chance. The more you spend of it in a turn towards a guaranteed hit meaning the less you have as a form of defense against the shots of your opponents during the following turn, creates an interesting risk/reward dilemma.

Serious Sam's Bogus Detour

Decently fun twin stick shooter, that does a great job at emulating the frenetic & chaotic gameplay of the mainline Serious Sam games.

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

Real-time tactics game that shares a lot of similarities with old stuff like Desperados & Commandos. Personally speaking, I was pretty mixed about this game, but it's worth mentioning nonetheless. I just feel quite strongly that it would've been 1000x better if it had been simply turn-based instead of real-time, which I just found got in the way of the core gameplay, making everything needlessly clunky & annoying to deal with. Not too noticeable for a first playthrough, but a pain in the ass when replaying missions for bonus objectives. Also has an OK story & playing with the Japanese dub was quite immersive.

Tooth & Tail

Interesting take on the RTS genre, with a fairly unique presentation & control scheme. The amount of commands you can issue to your units is fairly limited unfortunately, only being able to rally them to a location to attack based on where your primary flag waving hero character is standing, but it's got a decent campaign with a good bit of variety to the missions, beyond simply capturing the various pre-established resource points on the map, so as to defeat & hire more units than the enemy.

Betrayer

Another first person adventure game, that's also a bit of a shooter with some horror elements. The combat's fairly acceptable for the most part and you have an assortment of weapons you can use, ranging from swords to bows to a few olden time muskets & pistols, which I can recall as an aside being quite satisfying to fire. Most of the game however is spent exploring the cursed & somewhat desolate landscape you find yourself in, which, beyond the standard world, has an adjoining world of the dead that you can enter by interacting with a certain item. The game can be pretty ambiguous & cryptic when it comes to how to proceed, so it's certainly not for everybody. Still though, it's not a particularly long game & is a very moody & exquisitely atmospheric package, offering an excellent experience, assuming that's what you're looking for.

Renegade Ops

Really cool twin-stick shooter, loaded to bear with enough action & explosions so as to even put Just Cause to shame. It's got a bit of an Expendables meets GI Joe aesthetic, which suits the feel of the game quite well, along with a decent roster of various vehicles/characters to choose from, each with different weapons & abilities. The controls & sense of movement can be a little unwieldy at times, but overall, it's a really solid experience with decent mission variety & replayability. Come to think of it, I might actually replay this myself, given how long it's been & the fun I remember having with it.

Skulls of the Shogun

Underrated little strategy game that I almost never see anyone mention. It's a bit simplistic & arcadey, sure, but what little it does, it does well. Has a wonderful amount of charm & a great campaign to enjoy. Still patiently waiting on the developers to release a sequel for this game.

Tembo The Badass Elephant

A quirky & satisfying little platformer that I'd wager most have probably never heard of. You'd almost be mistaken for thinking it came straight out of Way Forward, but even though it actually doesn't, it definitely shares a striking similarity to the sorts of titles they tend to make and, to its credit, wouldn't seem out of place standing alongside the likes of the Shantae series, or their more recent works like The Mummy Demastered. Great looking artstyle, solid controls, impressive level design & few, yet well crafted boss fights. Like I said, I'm surprised it's not a Way Forward game. Not trying to imply Way Forward is perfect, since lords knows they've made tons of shit as well, but I just feel like it's a fitting comparison to make nonetheless.

Jotun

Action game that's designed primarily around fighting it's gallery of larger than life bosses, all of which are pulled from Nordic mythology, given that's the general aesthetic the game has going for it. From what I recall, combat's pretty simple, but you gain spell-like abilities each time you manage to fell a new boss, which have unique abilities tied to that of the boss you just defeated. Game also has a very drawn out perspective, so as to better illustrate a sense of scale, but personally I never found it got in the way of the gameplay and could always see & keep track of where my character was.

D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die

Hesitate to mention this one, considering that it's abandonware, but damn if it isn't memorable for a story-driven puzzle game, even if it's an unfinished one. Worth mentioning also that if you're not already a fan of Swery's style, you'll probably just hate it.

The Missing: JJ Macfield & The Island of Lost Memories

Side-scrolling puzzle game also made by Swery in the same vein as Inside or Limbo. Also has tons of that signature weirdness that's he known for, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, assuming that you're into it. Very short, but at least it's a full game, unlike D4. It also has some unique gimmicks at least in regards to needing to dismember, and or, break the bones of your character, who can regrow lost appendages at regenerate at will, to overcome obstacles & solve puzzles. A bit like Neverdead, for anyone who's ever heard of that game. It's also, not to beat around the bush, pretty easy to tell what the story's going to be about from pretty early on. That being, trannies. So that's another factor to consider which may, or may not, make it unpalatable to you.

I gotta say though, once you unlock the ability to play as the dude himself, dressed completely in drag, without the artifice of the succubus he thinks he is, I couldn't help, but lol. His extremely accentuated homosexual voice making me lol even harder.

Green Hell

Impressively immersive survival game set in the deep jungle, which recently saw a full release. Currently playing through this myself at the moment and I'm having a great, and rather harrowing, time with it. I've come close to death many times now, which has led to a lot of nicely tense moments where I've literally managed to save myself at basically the last minute. So far I've only tried the story mode, but there's also a separate challenge mode as well, which revolve around completing a set of unique objectives in the time allotted.

On the downside, the map's a bit smaller than I would have hoped, which is a little disappointing. The game itself can also be a tad obtuse at times, especially in regards to solving some of the various ailments & diseases you might find yourself saddled with at some point. One instance I can think of to illustrate this was when my character had contracted a worm of some sort, embedding itself in the arm. The only way to remove being with a particular item known as a "bone needle". And this was despite the fact that I had a bone knife in my inventory, but the game was like, "Nope, sorry, worms can only be removed with needles because we said so". Since I had no idea how to get a bone needle, my character was pretty much driven to the point of near complete madness (since the presence of worms periodically reduce your sanity), in the interim of me scrambling trying to find one. After much frustration, I finally discovered that you could harvest normal bones into needles, making me feel like a bit of a retard for not noticing that sooner. Even so, it still feels silly to me & a tad anal on the part of the developers.
Another example would be how dropping empty coconut shells from your inventory out into the open will naturally collect rain water, but you can't pick up and use an actual bowl you can find in the abandoned village to do the same thing. I mean, it's definitely a bit of a, "lol, wut?", moment, considering how many other things you can do that feel sensible & grounded in reality.

Another thing that bothers me is that, even though the fucker you're playing as is ostensibly supposed to be somebody already familiar with different exotic plant species, you have no idea what any of them actually do unless you eat them first. It feels downright suicidal & illogical, frankly. It's like god damn, couldn't I find a book or something that would let me know which plants are safe/useful & which ones aren't? It's especially bad when you might contract something like intestinal parasites and the description reads something like, "Cured by consuming a plant that has anti-parasitic properties". How, you may ask, are you expected to know which plant has this particular property? By, again, eating them at random until you happen to find the right one. A good third of which of the plants, or more, by the way, will also give you food poisoning should you happen to get unlucky, which you almost certainly will. In my case, I had like 3 intestinal parasites sucking down my food meters like crazy and after wandering around clueless as to what I was looking for to get rid of them & very nearly dying from food poisoning, I eventually just caved and look online. At this point, it's the only thing I've looked at the wiki for and I'm glad I did, since the alternative was just dumb & frustrating.

Anyway, the whole process of figuring everything out, despite being a bit of a hassle, was also pretty fun and is the reason I play these sorts of games. At this point, now that I know what everything does, it's become a little bit tame, which is a shame. To be expected, of course. Even so, even with all the difficulty modifiers maxed out, the act of survival is actually pretty easy. I feel like a wetness/cold meter, among some other things, would've added a bit of extra danger to the world. Strange that it doesn't have that actually.

As an aside, constantly needing to swat leeches off your body is super tedious. I mean, how the hell are leeches getting on me if I'm not even in the water? Are they falling from the fucking sky like rain, or something? The fact that you can inspect every limb of your body is kinda cool, though. Being able to see & treat an injury in a particular area is pretty neat.

HIGHHELL

Eccentrically stylized run 'n gun FPS that follows a structure of brief individual levels spread out over a decent, yet very short campaign. The design of the levels themselves, combined with the fact that you can die rather easily, makes the whole thing feel highly resemblant of something that would best be described as Quake meets Hotline Miami.

Lost in Vivo & Into the Gloom

If you're in the mood for some rather spooky games to play, then look no further than these two.

Lost in Vivo, to start with, has a very grimey & oppressive atmosphere, taking place almost entirely in dank, claustrophobic locations. The overall look & feel of it being, at least aesthetically speaking, heavily inspired by the likes of Silent Hill, which, for an indie game, it does a good job of emulating. Also has a fair bit of combat as well, with a small assortment of weaponry to choose from, not that it makes you feel that much safer. Has some downright pants shitting moments that, for me anyway, had me pretty unnerved & shaky. Having to deal with that disturbing as hell looking, weeping angel-esque monster in the warehouse was probably the first thing that really got to me, despite happening quite late into the game. The fact that it will disappear & reappear at will, with some inconsistent sound cues being the only thing you have to pick up on before it kills you, made it all the worse. In addition, getting chased by that monster with the giant face not long afterwards was fucking grueling in more ways than one as well. Firstly because it was like something from a nightmare & secondly because trying to crush it under that damn gate was such a pain in the ass, leading you to run back around & try again. That little miniature version of the monster that comes bursting out of its face after you kill it was unexpectedly & pleasingly twisted as well.

Into the Gloom, by contrast, is a tad more restrained in its presentation & pacing, but is equally as unsettling in its own way, while being just as downright terrifying at times as Lost in Vivo is. Another difference between the two is that it has no combat system, instead being more focused on puzzle solving & exploration, which are broken up by the unnervingly sudden & subdued chase sequences it springs on you. Well, aside from the very last one, anyway. Having to solve that door puzzle & find the various parts of the password you need while that damn ghost demon is relentlessly trailing behind you had my heart going quite a bit. I remember how I went the wrong way at first, leading down into the thing's lair (the place you end up if it catches you elsewhere in the game) and had to swiftly turn around only just narrowly managing to avoid its grasp, which followed with me then noticing & sticking my character's head in the noose you're intended to use to end the game & free yourself from the hell you're in. The fact that you get the best ending by hanging yourself is pretty damn grim and, dare I say, almost wizardly. Of course it bears mentions that within the game it's softened a bit, since hanging yourself allows your character to finally wake up from the coma he's revealed to be in & reunited with his mother.

Distant Worlds Universe

Best space 4x game ever made

>>47052
You might want to try Mutant Road to Eden. It's Xcom combat in a 3rd person exploration game, you play as a duck and a pig.

>>47056
Really liked the concept of this game but it didn't hold together well for me. Just didn't click.

Ashen

Indie Souls-like that makes no bones about what it's trying to emulate. Overall, it's mostly alright, but kinda dull towards the end. The world, while somewhat vast, is also mind-bogglingly linear. Comprising of nothing, but a series of interconnected zones all daisy chained to each other in what is, more a less, a straight line. Exploring each zone is also mostly tedious since the rewards for doing so are fairly minimal. Enemy variety is also kinda woeful, extending even to the bosses themselves, numbering in at only a handful. Aside from perhaps the very last one, the bosses are complete pushovers and you're very likely to defeat them on your first attempt. Weapon variety is also kind of lacking, but at least there some different move sets to be found amongst some of them. The huge, sprawling dungeons are also pretty cool. Just a shame there's only like 2 of them. The inclusion of an AI partner that follows you around & grows in power with you as you progress through the game is also novel, I suppose, but it's essentially just a variation of the friendly phantoms from the Souls series. Also funny how the story/lore, as forgettable as it is, is a lot more hopeful then the Souls series, what with you arriving in a world that's beginning anew, instead of one that's in its death throes. Anyway, it's far from perfect & doesn't have much replayability, but if you're into these sorts of games it's fine for a single playthrough. As another aside, there's no online component whatsoever & there's also no magic system, outside of certain items/masks that give you a minor ranged homing attack, similar to homing soul mass.

>>47098

>You might want to try Mutant Road to Eden

Yes, I should. Just another victim of my long backlog of games, unfortunately. Either way, looks very interesting & right up my alley.

Another XCOM-like title I've been meaning to check out at some point is that one game called "Phantom Doctrine", which was released a little while back. Seems to be a lot closer to XCOM, at least insofar as base/squad management is concerned, along with how the campaign itself is structured.

>Really liked the concept of this game but it didn't hold together well for me. Just didn't click.

Sorry to hear that. I really enjoyed it myself, but I can also understand why wouldn't. I'd recommend trying out Miasmata instead, but if you didn't like Betrayer, you might not like it either, which is a shame because it's actually a really comfy/interesting experience, assuming you can click with it & gel with its more cumbersome aspects.

Unworthy & Dark Devotion

Just a couple, mostly serviceable, 2D Souls-like games that you might not have heard of. Dark Devotion being the one I'd hesitate to call a Souls-like, merely because outside of its somber mood & strong focus on boss fights, it really doesn't have much in common with those games. Has some interesting gimmicks of its own though. Some good, some not so good. Some of its boss fights are quite interesting, (like the one where you need to kneel & pray in order to do damage) By contrast, Unworthy is essentially just a straight translation of a Souls-like into 2D. Both have a great roster of bosses to fight however, so check them out if you're interested.

Aquaria

Comfy metroidvania that was released a long while back & is actually one of the first semi-modern downloadable indie games I can remember hearing about. Perhaps most have already heard about it, but I just thought I'd mention it anyway.

The Swapper

Really neat puzzle game with a cool sci-fi story packaged in a delightfully bleak atmosphere. It's main gimmick being that you can create, control & "swap" into a cloned body of your choosing at any given time, assuming it's within reach to you. Does a lot of interesting things with that premise, both gameplay-wise & in the story.

Capsized

Arcadey 2D run n' gun game, with a short campaign split up by various action packed levels. Has a decently large assortment of weapons to choose from, given its strong focus on combat, all of which have their uses depending on the enemy or situation. Fun for a single playthrough.

Nom Nom Galaxy

Fantastic little game made by the equally fantastic Q-Games devs. Has a bit in common with something like Terraria, but is essentially designed around individual levels that are meant to be completed quickly & spread out over a varied campaign, instead of exploring one large 2D world as in Terraria's case. Gameplay revolves around making different soup combinations & mining resources/ingredients to construct the necessary infrastructure to do so in the time allotted so as to generate more market share in the galaxy wide "soup" market than your AI rival. In any given level this takes the form of a meter you need to fill up faster than your opponent. Different soup recipes, of which there are many that can be discovered, sometimes being necessary to increase your progress. Lots of different structures to build & possible automation in regards to making more soup as well. Just a shame you lose it all when the level ends. Has a wonderful look & very comfy soundtrack as well. Would certainly recommend checking out this, along with some of Q-games other works like "PJ Shooter" & "PJ Eden".

>>47107
Got Aquaria in the 1st humble bundle. Loved the setting, art and atmosphere, but didn't really like the gameplay. Still completed it, though.

>>47111
I really liked the concept for Nom Nom Galaxy, but I didn't really enjoy it and I don't know why.

>>47077

Having finished this game yesterday, I just wanted to make a quick addendum to my original post here.

First of all, the map is actually a lot larger than I thought it was, since the game advances you into 2 other, progressively smaller locations that aren't shown on your starting map. Still though, the way the whole game world itself is designed comes off as unbearably rigid & linear. Each of the areas are essentially completely isolated & disconnected from each other, with there being really no free-form way to traverse the world itself (ala something like The Forest). Quite the opposite in fact, since there's usually only one & I mean only one way to get between each area. These, often times, singular routes to get into these areas being also artificially barred by an arbitrary obstacle or requirement of some kind, which can only be surpassed once you find the correct item to do so. Gating everything away like this for the sake of the story just feels lame & highly restrictive, utterly destroying any sense of freedom of movement. Like, there's this one example I have in the second area where you see this broken metal bridge hanging off a small rock face and you think to yourself, "How the hell do I get up there?". The answer? By finding the contextual, grappling hook enabled tree branch that's tucked away in the third & final area. Shit like that is just so damn frustrating & it made this game a real fucking slog in the end, I must say.

Secondly, the story, while serviceable up until the mid-point, completely falls apart once you get to the third area & are tasked with finding the cure to the disease you inadvertently unleashed upon the world. The major problem with this being that the the game gives you literally no fucking clue as to how you're supposed to do this, instead going so far as to give you fake hints & deliberately misleading information. The answer to what you're looking for, being contained within a small article about poisonous dart frogs, that can only be read at the beginning of the fucking game. Didn't read it, or missed it somehow? Guess you're fucked then. Even if you did read it, like me, how the fuck are you meant to remember something so inconsequential, especially when the game doesn't even give you the courtesy of putting this sort of key information somewhere nearby to at least give you a chance of being able to find the answer on your own? But even assuming you did read it & managed to remember it & you decide to try to analyze one of these frogs, guess what? It won't work. Wanna know why? The damn thing needs to be alive first, even though the process of analyzing it kills it anyway. Not to mention that in order to capture one of these things alive, you need to take an unavoidable hit of near lethal toxin & unless you have enough painkillers or anti-toxin leaves, you'll be dead within a few minutes, making someone trying this even less likely. It's so unbelievably obtuse & asinine that it's truly hard to put into words. It's honestly as if the developers wanted players to wander around in complete, clueless frustration, trying to find the solution to something which only the vaguest & most translucently thin snippets of information will reveal, assuming also that you're either lucky to try it out of sheer desperation, or a god damned psychic. That combined with the shitty ass endings, both of which are rancid, totally soured me on this game. It's a damn shame, since there's a ton of stuff that's great about this game, but an equal to greater amount that's complete fly ridden shit. Also, the voice actor for your character has such a whiny, faggoty ass voice. Like nails on a fucking chalkboard having to hear that stupid cunt constantly mewling for his lost succubus. Almost made me want to feed his ass to a jaguar & kill myself in the process simply out of spite.

In retrospect, I had a much more consistently compelling experience with "The Forest" and, between the two, is far & away the better game.

>>47115

https://steamcommunity.com/app/815370/discussions/0/1628537372818308426/

Just an autistic aside to what I touched on in my spoilered section (don't click on it if you're looking to save yourself from being spoiled about what the end is, but, trust me, doing so would save you a lot of hassle), but I hate reading threads like this so much. I just want to smack those idiots in the head so hard. Fuck you to all those morons, this isn't good design. It's the exact fucking opposite of good design. Oh, it wasn't a problem for you? Doesn't matter asshole, it's still harebrained & ridiculous. The fact that no one in that thread, or any other from what I can see, is stating how much of a laughable mess that last leg of the game was, is incensing me to no end & making me think that either the world is more insane that I thought, or people are just that unable to state the obvious out of fanboy-ism. I'm literally fuming with rage here. Honestly, I don't care if you haven't played it, or have no intention of playing it, but can someone just validate me here? Please? I realize that someone could easily reverse this situation on me for an easy insult ("yuz juz mad cuz yuz tew stupid"), but I'd appreciate it if, just once, somebody could tell me what I want to hear. It would mean a lot to an isolated & retarded/autistic wiz like myself.

>>47112

Fair enough, wiz. It's good to know what other people think about the games I'm posting about, even if they weren't particularly compelling for you. I'll admit though that I have sorta felt like I'm just flooding the thread with games that nobody really cares for, or are just generally disinterested in. If so, I apologize. I'm trying my best here. I've played a lot of random indie games over the years & getting the chance to post about some of them, while imparting a few random thoughts as to what I personally thought about their overall quality, is appreciated & has at least given me something to do for the time being. I'd like to think I might be able to suggest some stuff that other wizzies could enjoy, which is part of what motivates my spam posting. I have no one to speak about these sorts of things with & being able to discuss this sort of thing, gives a conceited sense of potential value to all the time I've spent playing random, what some might very well be correct in considering to be, schlock, since now, beyond simply being a waste of time in the moment, I can share it with others, since maybe they'll like it too. Again, I don't mean to be a bother.

>>47117
I'm enjoying the thread. Now all the games appeal to me but I'm interested to see games being mentioned which I wouldn't other wise touch. Like when you browse a game store IRL

cosmoteer is a pretty neat game. it's free, although it's still being developed and only for windows, but there's still plenty of fun to be had. you build spaceships from individual parts and fight increasingly more difficult opponents.

>>47117
Hey, I wasn't meaning to be overly critical. Just giving my opinion. I actually really appreciate that you are spreading the word about these lesser-known games. It's not spam posting at all. Keep it up!

Xenosis: Alien Infection
Kkkkkk

>>47038
Looks like a 2d platform version of Dark Souls

Void Bastards

An extremely lite, first-person, story-centric rogue-lite with a pulpy comic book aesthetic. Not a particularly challenging game, even on hard difficulty, and resources like food/fuel never feel all that hard to come by. I'd consider these good things, since it keep the game from ever feeling too frustrating or cheap. There are some annoying elements however, like pirates that can lock and harass you from ship to ship, along with instant death events like space whales, but as long as you can manage to keep a couple missiles for your ship on hand, literally nothing like that can ever touch you. I was actually able to beat the game on hard without dying once and I wouldn't exactly consider myself that great at rogue-lite/like games, so I'd say that serves as a testament to how forgiving this game is. Not to mention that, from what I could tell, all of the things you can craft like weapons & health/oxygen/ship upgrades, are permanent and carry on between each attempt, so, once again, pretty forgiving design there.

Anyway, the game could've used more variety, since ship interiors and their various wildcard conditions, get real samey, real fast. Still though, I appreciated how each ship is laid out in a realistic manner, with an engine room, bridge, generator room, cargo area (etc.). So in other words, if you want the map to the ship you head to the bridge and download it, if the power goes out you go to the generator room and restart the power, if you want to disable security you go to the security room. Stuff like that. Each ship is broken down into certain types, so you know what you can expect beforehand. Luxury & cargo ships have a lot to loot, war ships have defensive missiles for your own ship, medical ships can heal you and give you random perks, (etc.). Again though, each type of ship is essentially the same as the last in regards to its category, which is a shame.

Character variety could've also been better and I would've preferred a roster of pre-defined characters to pick from instead of it just being random.

Weapon variety actually isn't too bad and it actually has some fun quirkiness in that respect, like a shotgun that fires blasts of staples. Enemy variety isn't too bad either, but before too long you start to see the same enemies, except with a different color palette to denote them being a more dangerous variant, which just felt a bit lazy.

Practically zero replayability for this game however, which, again, makes it hard to call it even a rogue-lite, frankly. Still good though for one playthrough.

Valfaris

Made by the same guy who did 'Slain: Back From Hell' (which another wizzie mentioned here >>47037 ) Decent little action platformer. A nice selection of weapons to choose from as well, but it sucks that you can only really find enough upgrades to max out one or two of them, made especially worse if you wasted those upgrades on an earlier weapon, but then found another one that was better later on. I also liked how choosing not to use a checkpoint leads to a greater reward being dispensed at the end of the level. Boss & level variety was good as well and, fortunately, I never found the game to be all that frustrating to deal with, as opposed to a couple sections in Slain I can recall being a bit fucked.

Bump. I'd like to hear from other wizards about any games that are under the radar and that I might not have heard of. I'll also post a few more.

Elderborn: First person Souls-like. First of its kind, I think. Gameplay actually isn't too bad and there's a decent amount of weapons to choose from. Has a sort of "heavy metal" aesthetic and is more geared towards lots of action and booting enemies off cliffs than anything else. Has OK enemy variety, but only 2 actual boss fights, (and the 2nd is just yet another tag-team O&S rip off), which is admittedly pretty pitiful.

Lake Ridden: Relaxing first person puzzle adventure game. The voice acting and story isn't all that great, but the environments and puzzles aren't too bad. A very comfy game if you're into this sort of thing.

Yes, Your Grace: Story-driven game with a kingdom management gimmick. You find yourself having to make some tough choices, but, near as I could tell, the story pretty much plays out the way it plays out regardless of what you do, or don't do, with only the ending being a tad different depending on said choices. As far as actually managing the resources of your kingdom, it's actually exceedingly simple and I was rolling in gold/supplies/soldiers/alliances, which somewhat detracted from how constrained and spread thin you're actually supposed to be. Still an OK experience with a pretty good story and sense of progression, where things go from bad to worse and the stakes just keep amping up, higher and higher.

Broken Lines: Turn-based tactics game with a WW2 aesthetic, but that isn't actually about fighting Nazis or anything. It actually takes place in some random, fictitious European country with mysterious, yet pretty generic looking soldiers in gas masks as your main antagonists. Has an interesting gimmick where each turn of gameplay moves for like 5-7 seconds and you can queue up as many actions as you want in between initiating the next turn, where time resumes again. It's a system that's pretty easy to master and is enjoyable enough for a single playthrough. Has some replay value in regards to random encounters and having to pick which mission to take along each step of the story, which also informs the other endings and such, but, overall, it's still fairly minimal stuff.

Supraland: First-person adventure platformer/puzzle game. Combat is fucking awful and really detracts from the experience, but, even so, the game has a really well designed map that while in the beginning is pretty boring becomes more fun to explore the farther you get into it and that, by the end, you'll be able to leap and glide all over. Also has some decent/clever puzzles, which tie into the progression of your abilities throughout the game. All the secrets are nicely well hidden, but not so much that it's obnoxious. Despite the terrible combat, the final boss to this game is actually one of the best I've seen in a while and is quite well done and memorable and it's essentially one big puzzle you have to solve when it comes to defeating it, which I thought was quite neat.

Katana ZERO: Another Hotline-Miami type game where you die in only a single hit. Has a time manipulation mechanic which is fairly novel and pretty neat to fool around with, deflecting bullets and stuff. Has solid gameplay and is definitely one of the better/more memorable HM clones to be released. Pretty short though, which kind of sucks. Only takes a couple hours to finish and it ends on mostly a cliffhanger, leading into the eventual sequel. Played it again to get the true ending and was somewhat disappointed on how little actually changes in the story. Also, just so you know, the last form of the true final boss is fucking brutal, but in all the worst most bullshit ways possible. Such as, screen wide attack patterns that can very easily clip you and thus kill you instantly, or summoning tons of random smaller enemies to fuck with you and that can also kill you in one hit, while the main boss keeps hammering you with its own attacks, and just generally having a very unforgiving moveset of randomized attacks. Although, I'll admit, that using one of the alternate costumes probably would've made it much easier, since they come with bonus extra abilties.

>>50406
I don't think this game's been mentioned so far, I just remembered it. Not obscure but not exactly well known either.

Severance: Blade of Darkness
Old spanish game from the early 2000s. I haven't played it much and it was a long time ago but it was pretty fun dismembering enemies. Maybe I'll get around to finishing one of these days.

>>47055
Great game- a shame its basically dead

Panzer Knight

lost ruins, feels like the devs liked momodora rutm