what obscure video games do you like?

[sylviesland]

hello!! im a big fan of weird and niche video games (especially if they're released outside of my continent; north america to be exact) and i wanted to see other people's favorite weird games! preferably not something extremely popular, although if you say something like yume nikki that's fine. but if you have any examples of some very underground games, please tell me! btw, the game doesn't have to be old, nor does it have to be on recent gen consoles. also it's totally okay to list a game that might be popular where im from, but isn't popular where you are!

i'll go first; some of my favorite niche games are vib ribbon, gregory's horror show, cubivore, this one old online cat game i forgot the name of (if i can, i'll post an image of it from pinterest), and doko demo issyo!

[ZinesByLennon]

Ok I wouldn't say I LIKE this game but it's definitely fun to play and interesting at the very least especially as a rhythm game. It was released for PS2 and only in Japan. It is called "Dog of Bay"

I think an English patch exists but I've yet to try it out.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

but if you have any examples of some very underground games

I've a blog about underground games!

Also, some of my favorites are:
-Hyperrogue - Imho, one of the best fantasy games ever made. A roguelike in an non-euclidian, evershifting world.
-Agentia - A digital poem. A great one
-The sea will claim everything - Great poin't and click adventure
-Judero - Weird celtic adventure game.
-Wallachia: Reign of Dracula - Highly difficult Castlevania worship

I also heavily recommend "King of the Dragon Pass" as great, unconventional CRPG.

[killerscreen]

One of my favourite obscure games is Opoona for the Wii!

I think the team for this game had a huge appreciation for art and design, I've never before played an RPG where your character has an "art" stat that increases when you look at paintings and sculptures. There is also an entire catalogue of said artworks to find and complete. If I recall correctly, one of if not the main artist for the game is an architect, which must explain the game's pride in its aesthetics and scenery.

I absolutely love the game's vibe, and I think some people on this forum would, too.




I've already found someone calling it "the most frutiger aero game ever made" just looking for these images and I wholly agree. I kind of hope it catches on in that community. The way it looks and sounds (the OST is great too) is just too good to be left forgotten.

[MediocreMetastasis]

Haven't played it but I'm indoctrinated by the eeriness that is Bad Day on the Midway. It was a interactive point and click for the Album of the same name by The Residents where you have to get to the end of the night before everyone succumbs to the plague or gets murdered by the serial killer on the loose(yes I'm not joking). The main feature of the game is being able to see the point of view of most of the character, you can see their thoughts, control them, each character has a distinct personality, motive, and ending.

The craziest fact is David Lynch was going to direct a tv series based on the game. The script was never agreed on before getting cancelled but it's crazy that it could've happened.

[candycanearter07]

Two games that I love for opposite reasons that are both pretty obscure (at least from what I've seen online) is tERRORbane and ProgressBar95.

PB95 is very obviously a mobile game ported to desktop (except if you're like me and never looked into it for years and assumed it was original). Thankfully it's pretty cheap on steam and has 0 ads, unlike some mobile ports. I love it because of how simple the gameplay is and how it nails the asthetic of EVERY Windows (and mac) version. I do mean every version, from DOS to 11, and macOS 1 to whatever the latest is called nowadays. It does a really good job with theming. I will say it takes a while to unlock stuff, considering nearly every achievement for the higher skins are marked as golden/rare, but it's a really fun game to start up and make a bit of progress on.

On the complete other hand, tERRORbane is a game entirely about its story, with very little "real" gameplay, beyond scripted choices. It's like the Stanley Parable but with a less British narrator, and its taking more explicit jabs at "unfinished" and "completely out there" RPGmaker games that are so buggy that the main objective of the game is finding all of them. Beyond the jokes and stuff, it has a really nice message about game dev and creativity and stuff. It's still not something you'd necccesarily go back to play after completing, but it's a pretty fun 30 hours.