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I had a great time with a couple card battlers last year, Cobalt Core and Nitro Kid.
Cobalt Core has a similar presentation to FTL, with a turn-based format instead. Plenty to do in it, great soundtrack, charming writing.
Nitro Kid is on a more traditional 2D grid with an isometric viewpoint. It appealed greatly to my love of 80's settings, but I'd wait for a sale as it's thin on content.
I've mentioned these before and I'll do it again:
Just recently started Lunacid, and I'm having a blast. I'm a fan of dungeon synth and its subgenres, and I"ve been looking for a game that has those vibes for quite some time. This one seems to fit the bill quite a bit. And I also have wanted to check out King's Field, but was afraid that it might be too dated to be enjoyable; Lunacid seems like a fresh take on that dungeon crawler style of gameplay. The only thing the game lacks imo is a dedicated pause button
Hmmm... how about the Rusty Lake games? They're weird. Or maybe Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk? Adventure puzzler and VN respectively.
I probably have a few more if I think about it. My friend and I randomize my steam list to decide things to play and there were quite a few interesting ones I got from who knows where-- bundles and bundles.
how about the Rusty Lake games? They’re weird.
And they're also linked. It's a really cool rabbit hole to go down. Definitely recommend them to people who are into games with some meta elements to them!
There's even a recent one that's two player, I guess inspired by the We Were Here games. Which now that I think it it, also recommend.
My friend and I still say "My blood sugar is low" and "Owls" now as again as an inside Rusty Lake joke.
Shadow Tactics and Shadow Gambit are two brilliant gems that come to mind by Mimimi Studios. I discovered them a few weeks ago and just learned they went defunct back in August because they were too niche a genre and couldn't make enough sales. They're Stealth Strategy games where you control a group of ninjas/pirates through a heavily guarded level to the objective, stealthily murdering everyone along the way. If you get seen you can easily jump back to a quick save and try again. You're not overpowered and can easily be killed by enemies so save scumming is deliberately built in to the experience to experiment with your approach.
It's in fact three games:
You can notice how each game perfects the formula, but they're overall extremely similar. I would very much recommend the last one if you have to pick one, as the focus on magic allowed them to go truly wild with the character abilities. Gaelle shooting corpses and partymembers around with her cannon is a particularly fun one.
Sidenote: Far as I can tell they didn't go bankrupt or anything, they just ... stopped. They're done or so. Did the same concept three times, happy now, works for them.
OMG-Z It's a playstation mini for the PS3/PSP.
Warp on the PS3.
Donut County isn't really a nobody game. But I never see it mentioned.
Blasphemous.
Fantastic metroidvania meets soulslike game. The art style, the lore, the atmosphere, and by God - the music!
The combat is not super great, but it's capable enough for a metroidvania.
I haven't played the second one, I hear it's kinda hit and miss.
The first one also meh at releast until several patches later. The second one is on the easier side as the penitent one is now more agile.
I got this game recently since I got hooked hard on Dead Cells, and needless to say combat was the disappointing part. Coming from DC it feels so rigid and limited, needlessly punishing. But I got the game for art, so that part is great. It's also weirdly poorly optimized. They made the whole game in one resolution and are scaling everything, like whole screen. So your choice of resolution might end up weirdly stretched. An odd decision.
Universim.
Sebil Engineering has a really fun mechanic I've never seen before. Its like those Hot Wheels tracks you always wanted as a kid but your parents never got you, but even better. I guess its a traffic control game? Anyone have other examples of these?
Doesn't look like it offers the chance to build a "hot wheels track". Feels like that idea of bridge constructor, but applied only to angles of roads
True, its not the best description of it. I was trying to land on something that would resonate with the type of person i thought it might appeal to, without fully explaining the thing. Maybe I failed lol.
Yeah there's no track building. Each stage is a physics puzzle where you're at some section of road, and there's an infinite stream of cars. You're allowed to make crude adjustments to verts on the road, in attempt to get the stream of cars to drive to some goal. The puzzles are very satisfying, and even when you're not at a solution, its just fun watching the wagons fly into whatever direction your road positioning happens to take them.
Also its truly independent in the strict sense of the term. Solo dev, no publisher. Not that I have anything against small publishers.
Dominions (Dominions 6 just came out, but it's an iterative game so try 4 or 5 first)
So it's like civilization and battle simulator had a baby, where armies are managed by the unit and there are simulated battles of thousands.
But all the civs are loosely based on different existing mythologies and there's a crazy complex magic system
Oh, and you get to create a god that you can totally battle with.
If you like civ-like games, it's a really unique and satisfying twist on the genre with an incredible amount of sheer depth.
Shadow of the Forbidden Gods - a strategy game where you play as the ancient cthonic entity waking up because the stars are right. Set in a fantasy world where the forces of good slowly become aware of the coming apocalypse and attempt to forestall your return. You have to get past the janky UI and some dreadful AI art, but the gameplay is unique and satisfying.
Treasure Adventure Game, maybe? I believe it's free, though there's a paid remake of it named Treasure Adventure World now.
Cutesy "kid goes on adventure" 2d platformer with sailing and some Metroidvania-y or Zelda-y factors. Cute pixel art and the music is very well done.
the Skyrim total conversion mod, Enderal: Forgotten Stories, blew me away, and it's free if you own Skyrim. Even has its own installer and game page on Steam.
From The Depths -- very deep large vehicle design and combat game, prepare to happily lose months of your life
Barotrauma -- help crew a submarine under the command of the captain to perform missions in an alien open world. fun multiplayer with good in game VOIP
I'm currently totally hooked on Tiny Rogues.
The Witcher 3 (/s)
Why did I have to scroll down so far for le hidden gem?
After Hades, I hope some folks went back and played Supergiant’s other titles. I love them all. But even amongst them, Pyre is the underdog, unknown, shunned. And I think it’s fantastic. The music and writing is top notch. You can really see the bones of Hades in all their games, but they polished their world building and story telling to perfection in this one.
rogue Lords: it is inspired by Slay the Spire (StS). Card game with roguelike element. Here, the cards are replaced by your minions skill. But the right set of skill is less frustating to build than in StS. Making it a more fun experience, and the graphics are way above StS(not hard). As in StS , with luck/skill you can manage to build some 'infinite deck" where you never let go of the control of the battle.
Black Souls 2
Where The Water Tastes Like Wine - Ever play ToeJam & Earl? This game has the same core game loop. You're on a treasure hunt, unlike ToeJam & Earl where you are trying to find spaceship parts. In Where The Water Tastes Like Wine, you meant to collect stories and then share stories with major NPCs. The stories that you collect and share, change over the course of the game. The soundtrack is also really good.
Splattercat did a video on the game.
This game isn't for everyone. It's a very, niche game.
Null Gravity Labyrinth for everyone who likes labyrinths
Ostriv, an 18th century city building game. I believe it is just the single developer based in Ukraine.
Live For Speed, this one isn't quite "hidden" but is overlooked by many as it is not on any storefronts. Sim Racing history and still going strong today with the 3 original devs.
LBreakout[1] is the best Arkanoid clone, period. There has been many attempts by Taito (or Square Enix by proxy) to reboot the franchise but each of their releases just flopped terribly because they keep removing features that people come back to Arkanoid for (the latest PC release, Eternal Battle, has no level editor). In similar vein is Apotris[2] (whose developer is being hunted by the Tetris Company like a fugitive the last few months) is the greatest iteration of Tetris IMO, and it is open-source and developed by a one-man team.
[1] https://lgames.sourceforge.io/LBreakoutHD/ [2] https://akouzoukos.com/apotris
Void Stranger
Can of Wormholes