So many.

Hollow Knight, Celeste, Outer Wilds, Subnautica, Stardew Valley, Slay the Spire and Zachtronics games likely need no introduction. Then there’s also…

Bug Fables. Incredibly satisfying Paper Mario-like which has thrived into its own thing.

Baba is You/Environmental Station Alpha, hempuli games. The former you’ve likely heard of, a logic Sokobon with truly mindbending puzzles deeper within (and a level editor!! god, I could gush about level editors for hours). ESA is an older hempuli metroidvania. If you’re a fan of that genre, it’s among the best.

Caves of Qud – the best true roguelike IMO. It has so much flavor.

Slime Rancher [2], my beloved serotonin game.

Against the Storm, really well polished citybuilder that emphasizes the first few hours of citybuilding. It’s a bit hard to explain here, but I’d suggest looking into it if you’re a fan!

Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga, my personal favorite tactical RPG.

I could go on but I gotta draw the line somewhere…

Disco Elysium for certain. Everything about it is perfect from the writing to the music.

A Short Hike is simply delightful. I just started playing it and it feels so genuine and kind, just a cute and happy little game!

Maybe not underrated, but Darkwood blew my mind.

I want to promote Monochrome Heights. It’s a deceptively simple, kaizo platformer based on color.

https://pdyx.itch.io/black-and-white-game-jam-2022

I’m not sure Siralim Ultimate qualifies as “underrated”, but it’s the kind of game where if the idea resonates with you it’ll keep you happily busy forever. It’s often compared to a Pokemon game, but I think it’s better described as Pokemon meets a dungeon blobber.

At its core, you build a group of six creatures and go into a procedural dungeon where you will fight other groups of similar creatures, picking options like fighting and casting spells. The creatures each have special traits which change game rules for them, and your job is to take advantage of this so that you win these fights. Your character also has perks which act as additional modifiers, and fusing creatures and slapping artifacts on them means you can apply even more changes to how everything works.

The interesting part emerges from the fact that these traits are generally not modifiers like +3.5% damage on Tuesdays; they are instead drastic and game-warping options like “If this creature successfully attacks, there’s a 50% chance that a dead creature on its team is resurrected.” That by itself is kind of hugely impactful… and it’s also kind of basic and boring for Siralim. Now let’s fuse it with a monster that immediately gets a free attack if the enemy attacks any other monster on your team, now we’re starting to cook.

Your actual goal isn’t to play fair, it is to fold, spindle, and mutilate the game’s mechanics to allow your team to win in increasingly unfair and ridiculous fights. It’s also pretty good at letting you control your level of challenge, incidentally, but you are at some point going to have to win against enemies with their own completely bonkers tricks. If you enjoy figuring out how to warp complicated rules to your benefit and stack absurdity atop absurdity, this game is calling for you. It’s absolutely got indie jank, by the way - the graphics aren’t amazing, the game sometimes grinds along very slowly processing all the silliness, and while it has lots of reference material ingame there’s still just way too much information to take in.

Kena: bridge of spirits

If you like open source gaming, Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead.

Turn based zombie (and other creatures) survival game with very intricate crafting mechanics. It plays in the same style as a classic roguelike (think stuff like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon) when it comes to movement.

Anything in the game can be broken down into components, and most things can be built back up from those components. The vehicle building system is also very solid, you can make a fully customized hybrid car with remote turrets, a horse-pulled shopping cart, or anything in-between.

The game has a pretty big focus on realism, there’s concepts such as sound and smell which determine how you are detected by creatures. I remember reading about a user on the community discord server who researched the properties of bug chitin because they wanted to change the giant bugs you can fight in the game.

The biggest downside is that it’s pretty obtuse to get into if you have no experience with similar games. Movement is most efficiently done using the numpad, as the 1,3,7,9 keys work as diagonals. Most keys on your keyboard perform a separate action (e.g. ‘e’ to examine, ‘t’ to throw, uppercase ‘E’ to eat etc.). You’ll find yourself checking the controls often. Similarly, there’s basically no tutorial. Or more specifically, there’s no way to make a good tutorial for how much you can do in the game. The mechanics are all so diverse and so deep that the only realistic way to learn about them is either trial and error, or asking questions on the community discord server.

That being said, it’s one of the best sandbox games out there. And it’s free, so why not try it?

Gonna have to be Pokemon Eternity https://discord.gg/TZWNXrxK

This is a weird one, because I think the title of the game is putting people off as it’s nowhere near as popular as it should be. However, please give me a chance here to convince you to try it.

Intergalactic Fishing.

You don’t actually need to be into fishing games to enjoy it. The fishing, although about as addictive as most good fishing minigames, is only a small portion of the game.

It also revolves around a similar style of exploration to some space games, such as No Man’s Sky and Elite Dangerous. While progressing through the storyline you will gain access to undiscovered lakes with their own unique species of fish, and information collected about these lakes can be sold.

Catching fish gives you information about that fish’s likes in terms of lure, along with a few other attributes. You can then use this information to design a lure to suit it. This becomes a puzzle game, as lures are designed by arranging squares on a grid. Factors such as “shininess” and “noise” are infkuenced by putting more blocks near the edges, or leaving more holes and forming irregular shapes.

It’s primarily a sandbox game, but there is a short storyline. Once finished though, the game opens up into an addictive endgame that I don’t want to spoil. Tournaments and contracts are a nice diversion throughout the game and can also net you (sorry for the pun, but fish puns are hard to avoid) a decent amount of cash.

It’s quickly become one of my favourite games of all time.

This is such a difficult question to answer since theres so many ways to categorise your answer. But in terms of sheer time played , Slay the Spire wins out for me. That game just swallows days.

A couple I haven’t seen mentioned:

-Satisfactory: A first person factory builder and exploration game that scratches an itch no other game can. Made by Coffee Stain Studios, great all around. Prepare your Excel (LibreOffice Calc?) spreadsheets.

-The Witness: A first person puzzle game by Jonathan Blow (creator of Braid, great game too). Many people think it is boring, or that it takes itself too seriously and that it’s not that smart. But if it clicks with you, it’s an amazing experience start to end, can’t recommend enough.

FTL FTW.

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My all time favourite has to be The Return of the Obra Dinn. In my opnion it is the single best detective game. Not only is the narrative very captivating, but the deduction process cant be brute forced. It simply is a master piece.