Years / Decades:
70s , 80s , 90s , 00s , 10s , 2020
Genres:
2D Platformers, Bullet Hell / 2D Shooters, First Person Shooters, Flash, Horror, Point and Click , Racing, Real Time Strategy, Roguelikes, RPGs (Turn Based), Visual Novels
Welcome back. This part of the series will be primarily focusing on genres. So far I have [Action RPG, Board Game, Tabletop RPG, Arcade Game, Third person shooter, MMO, Action, 4X (Civilization-like), 3D Platformer, Dungeon Crawler, Card Game, Text dungeon, Souls-like, Stealth, Rhythm, Metroidvania, Survival, Sandbox, Shoot/beat 'em up, City Builder, Adventure, Simulation, Puzzle, Fighting, MOBA, Turn Based Strategy, Real Time Tactics, Grand Strategy, Handheld, Walking simulator, Tower Defense, Sports, Miscellaneous, and Casual] as available genres. Let me know if I missed something, and I will try to get it added.
This is eventually all going to get compiled into one megathread for people who want gaming recommendations from Chapos specifically. Other consoles and genres will come in sporadic subsequent threads. Please contribute to previous threads if you missed them. This is meant to be an exhaustive list.
Expanding on your choice(s) is definitely a plus. Not everyone knows about or has played non-mainstream titles.
Can't wait for the fully voice acted new content rerelease existing owners get updated to for free next month, my enjoyment of the game coming entirely as a surprise, I'm sure
Gonna throw it down for Fez, Limbo, Undertale, and Bastion this round
I'm amazed that nobody's mentioned them yet but: Stardew Valley, Factorio, Rimworld. All indie, all playable on low-end hardware, all extremely great.
Terraria is already incredibly well-known, but it's still an indie title that was originally built on a very tiny budget, and it has an addictive mashup of action platforming and building/crafting/base management. I've probably played it for a couple thousand hours over the past decade, and I'm still playing it now.
Similarly, Dead Cells is an extremely refined action platformer with roguelike elements built by a ten-person French co-op studio (though the success of the game caused them to create a sister studio to continue its development that's not a co-op). "Like Dark Souls, but 2D and roguelike" isn't wrong, but it's got more flow and a faster tempo than the Souls games (with the possible exception of Bloodborne).
Cave Story is often heralded as one of indie gaming's greatest achievements, and for good reason. A classical Metroidvania, it shares many of the same themes and design elements as more modern indie darlings like Undertale (cute characters, excellent music, solid gameplay, darker and heavier themes than the cute exterior would suggest, multiple endings, etc.). The original game is freeware, and has an excellent fan translation. Don't play or buy Cave Story+, the publisher is a huge piece of shit who basically stole the rights from the original developer and made his life so miserable he almost gave up game dev (also the translation is awful).
The entire Touhou series is a high water mark within the shmup genre, with brilliant (and blisteringly difficult until you learn it) gameplay and excellent music.
Seconding Yume Nikki and Undertale; both very good sad games with strange and delightful worlds. Undertale has an incredibly charming cast. OneShot is in a similar vein and has very cute art (I haven't finished it though).
Lots of people like Space Funeral, Off, and the Lisa series, but I haven't played any of them. They're all in my backlog.
Absolutely. The amount of depth and complexity Tarn put into the game is actually inspiring. And it’s been free the whole time, with the paid steam version only going to pay for medical bills (thanks America!). Hard to get into for sure but I’d recommend it to anyone interested in civ/city management games. It’s the best out there
Dwarf Fortress really sounds like the kinda game i would love but after two or three hours i was just bored out of my mind. I take it its worth going back to?
DF is the kind of game that I love reading about other people playing
Oh shit I didn't realize it was free, I'll give it another try tomorrow.
Content warning: Themes of depression, isolation, self harm.
Yume Nikki is fantastic though.
Y'all seem to have most of the bases covered already, so I'm just gonna throw out some of my faves I don't already see represented.
Oxenfree has the sharpest, most naturalistic conversation system of any game I've ever played. Like it's good enough to carry the whole game without much else mechanics wise.
Lucas Pope's Papers Please definitely deserves some props for making a deep and engaging story out of nothing but stuffing you in a box with a bunch of paperwork and threatening to kill you imaginary family.
Return of the Obra Din , also from Lucas Pope, is the best detective game I've ever played, and tells a gripping and effective story with less dev resources than get put into rendering Master Chef's shiny left bollock.
Braid even all these years later is still as sublimely beautiful and clever as it was when it came out.
Just because you mentioned Obra Dinn and rendering in the same sentence, I will now post the devlog about its signature 3D dithering effect
Frog Fractions, Risk of Rain, I really want to say Magicka despite it being picked up by Paradox in the last ~year of its development
There's a zillion high-quality mods you could feasibly call "low-budget games" like OG Team Fortress, DotA, stuff like that.
Stardew Valley, Rim World, Bastion. There are tons of great indie games but those three top my list. Honorable mention to FTL and Slay the Spire.
Gonna have to go with FTL since it may be my all time favorite game in general.
