[Steam] Which lesser known games have you bought or are planning to buy in this sale?

I don't see people mention Cross Codes often and no one has mentioned here yet so I think it's "lesser known".

It's one of the games I got. I'm 20 hours in and the game is amazing so far.

The game can be pretty challenging sometimes so I'm not sure if it's for everyone. I'd describe the game as a MMORPG but without the MMO. It has a lot less grinding than a MMO and a lot more puzzles.

I saw some people compare it to Zelda but I feel like that's only accurate for some aspects.

Cross code won awards and was featured several times on Linus Tech tips. IDK how lesser known it could be then. It did come out a while ago. I agree that the game is good, but it is one of the few games I quit because of performance issues.
- Oh wow. I only learned of the game this year so I might just be living under a rock. I don't watch LTT often, do they do game reviews now?
In a similar vein i would add Unsighted to this list.

Superflight is 59¢, I cannot stop playing this shit

ooo same folk that made thronefall.

thanks for the tip, def gonna pick this one up
Came here to say Superflight and Whisker Squadron: Survivor.
I love that game, great for a short or long chill session.
Cool game! Thanks for namedropping it here

Oh one game I forgot to include is Ghost Trick. It's so lesser known I forgot about it.

This game is amazing. It's by the creators of Phoenix Wright and it was originally made for the DS back in 2010. It was a commercial failure because Capcom didn't advertise it at all and since it's released it's been pretty obscure. It was only ported to PC this year.

I think this is a game you should go in blind. I highly recommend this game.

funnily enough I first found out about this game and started playing it literally days before the announcement of the remaster. I'll stick with the DS version when I continue it cause I prefer the stylus for this kind of game but I'm very glad others will get to enjoy this game regardless of their ownership of a DS.
I think this one is also pretty well known as a beloved cult classic lol

Shattered Pixel Dungeon
Sunset Overdrive
Your Only Move is Hustle
Death's Door
Super Woden GP 2

Super Woden GP 2 looks really interesting and I never heard of it. Going on the wishlist.

Shadow of the doubt

Return of the obra dinn

Hypnospace outlaw (haven't played yet)

Lucifer among us (criminally short)

Into the breach

Curse of the dead gods

Sea of survivors

God of weapons

Tanuki sunset

En garde

Human fall flat

Later alligator

Dredge

Hades

Party hard 2

Abandon ship

Passpartout

Cloadpunk

Lil gator game

Mosa lina

Obra Dinn is one of my favorites of all time.
- Never heard of it. Is it a story heavy game? My Steam account says it's similar to Hollow Knight and Ace Attorney, which seems like two completely different games.
- I just started it yesterday- got my first 9 completed!
- Dude, that last guy. It was such tricky thing
I see Obra Dinn, I upvote. What an amazing game.
- I'd call it the best detective game if it wasn't for the shadow of the doubt
Hypnospace is SOOOOO GOOOOD if you grew up in the 90s on the internet.
- Just bought, want to try
I picked up En Garde recently because I absolutely adore the tone, setting and swashbuckling duelist vibe.

It's a little flat for me, I don't feel like it has achieved the character fantasy of being a swashbuckler in the mechanics, instead I'm basically kicking boxes into people and stabbing them again and again.
- It's really hard at the beginning
- I'm not a fan of the bleakness of souls games but maybe I'd like En Garde better, it looks like a lot of fun

Not sure how well known it is, but on a friend's recommendation I bought Cassette Beasts. I just got a second hand Steam Deck and it's a fun combination. It's basically a Pokemon-like game, but with its own charm. Instead of pokeballs you record monsters with cassette tapes. It's quite a goofy game and I'm enjoying it so far.

If you do get it for the Steam Deck, you should play it with compatibility mode set to Proton 8, because then it somehow uses 40% less battery or something.

I didn’t get it during the sale, but Cocoon. Such a fun little puzzle game with great art direction. It’s well worth its price tag despite being a fairly short game.

Tunic is on my list and I’ll probably pick it up later this week.

Tunic is amazing! Although the combat feels very clunky (maybe I'm spoiled by sekiro).

Thankfully, you can just turn on reduced difficulty, since the beauty of the game lies not in the slow combat, but the puzzles and puzzles within those puzzles. Also the main character is adorable.
- I'm doing a play through with a friend (trying to get the good ending rn) such a fantastic game! Beautiful and the world layout puzzles are fantastic!

Warhammer 40k: Boltgun

Looking forward to playing it this week

Boltgun accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do. Great game. It gives me the same sort of power fantasy vibe that Space Hulk: Deathwing did but lets you actually move at the terrifying speed that a space marine should.

I finally bought horizon zero dawn! I just hope to have some time to play it...

Same :'), but i bought Titanfall 2
- https://github.com/0neGal/viper
  
  Highly recommend this launcher for Titanfall. The Northstar client allows mods and private servers.
it's hard to describe how good it is. you'll make time.
Horizon Forbidden West is set to come to PC at some point as well!

Cloudpunk and a DLC for the crazy good Not for Broadcast game.

Nothing here, but Black Mesa was outstanding. Could not put it down.

Not related, but OP, if you get the chance I recommend at least trying out Project Wingman in VR with joysticks.

Holy shit, was it a transcendent experience.

I beat the campaign with a controller on a monitor my first time around, but on my second playthrough I played it in VR and I found there is nothing like looking for bogeys and tracking them by peeking around your cockpit.

More related to the prompt, but if anyone wants a recommend:

I just beat both Pentiment and Return of the Obra Dinn and both were truly the historical detective / mystery games that I've waited so long for.

Go into both completely blind and report back. I guarantee you, that you will not be disappointed.

I picked up Forager. It's kind of addictive....

I loved this game too but I was never able to finish it. The game kept getting incrementally slower as I progressed like it was having trouble processing everything. Happened on both my Switch and Xbox Series X. Hopefully the PC version is better.
- That still happened on PC, or on my OG steam deck at least, but it was somewhat remedied by some commands to adjust settings. Things like turning off visible bots, background settings, UI elements. That leaves most of the processing just being you walking around/gathering and whatever background machinery you have going, vs all of everything.
  
  I imagine those were not present on Switch/Xbox since these were basically commands applied to the game .ini.
  
  Also FWIW, may not really be worth picking up again unless you really want to endgame it. The developer was kind of a chud to the team from some of the stories I read which seemed to result in the endgame kind of teetering off into nothing. Like, once you find all the NPC's you're not playing for anything but to build and optimize, even though it feels like it's leading you on with more to unlock somehow.
  
  I'd double check of course, as with anything it could be a bunch of nonsense. But yeah I pretty much agree, it's an ok game with some issues, they can be remedied on PC but even then it's just kind of like you work to it, you did it, it's done and what was the point. There's nothing to take away from the game, I guess.

I bought Nuclear Blaze and have been having fun with it.

I've bought a bunch of Wadjet Eye games; Unavowed, Gemini Rue, Primordia, Strangeland, Shardlight, Technobabylon and The Excavation of Hob's Barrow.

And aside from that, Return of the Obra Dinn.

I've already played Gemini Rue, and I'm finishing Unavowed.

I played Primordia ages ago. It's such an interesting world, and the voice acting is top notch.
- I just want Logan Cunningham to whisper me to sleep every night.

I bought (the) Gnorp Apologue, really nice idler

I think it might become big as this one is absolutely going places play-wise.

I already own the game so this is more of a reccomendation.

Civ6 is only £5 right now and all the dlc only costs £20 in the bundle. It's an easy game to reccomend for anyone who is even a little interested in strategy games.

Cattails. It's like Stardew Valley but with cats. I played the first game on Switch and just picked up the sequel to play on Deck.

Flower

Picked up The Ascent and Dead Cells this time around.

I like The Ascent! That's a fun game. I've heard of a lot of jank, but not experienced much myself. Other than some crashes when loading between areas.

Cruelty Squad is very often overlooked because of how it looks, but it’s genuinely one of the best indie games I have ever played

Definitely not a roguelike. This is the greatest stretching of "roguelike" that I've heard in my entire life.

But it is an excellent game.

One of the themes of the game is desensitization to violence, and you likewise become desensitized to the odd graphics. It's very cool!
- ...Who said anything about roguelikes? (Wait, did prev commenter edit?)

It's a new release so maybe this doesn't count but against the storm is excellent

I got This is the Police a while back but finally installed it. Surprisingly engaging given how it forces you to be a corrupt and shitty cop to survive. Feels like copaganda, but thankfully I can separate fiction from reality.

I‘m thinking about Aragami 2, but my coop mate and I still have a buncha games to chew through tbh. The first game was a blast.

I got Just Cause 3 and the Quake 2 Remaster.

Just Cause 3 is a great one.
Aragami 2 is more coop-friendly than the first game, but not as good overall.

Heartbound - indie game in constant development

I bought the old homeworld games. I remember really enjoying them way back when, and the third game finally comes out in 24 so I thought I'd give them a play through to catch up. Still good.

Squad is definitely one of them! Also the Battlefield Collection is on 89% sale (only includes the ones since 2011 tho)

I've been a bit burnt out lately, but fully agree with Squad. My most played steam game by a fair bit. Love the ICO so much.

Touhou Mystia's Izakaya is the only lesser known game. I bought in this sale.

Someone mentioned SpaceBourne 2 in another thread the other day, so I checked the reviews which made it sound like a pretty good game and it was on sale so I bought it.

Mechanically, it's awesome. Polish wise... It needs work. Text-to-speech voice overs (which I hope are placeholders because they are jarring as fuck), kind of a mishmash of aesthetic design that makes me think the assets are merely freebies on the Unreal store, just missing that general pizazz that shows off the quality.

Not that it takes away from the fun, which is the most important part. The best way to even describe the game is "Mount & Blade in space." It combines some of the best aspects of Elite Dangerous, X3/X4, NMS, and Stellaris into its own thing, and it is super cool to play if not look at (though the crazy set piece things in the MQ are super fucking cool; like being eaten by a space kraken and then escaping in a smaller ship while avoiding thousands of little squiddy things, and they're actually there not like some BS particle effect or optical illusion).

Shadow of Doubt has just recently come under my radar. Its a procedurally generated voxel noir game.

Caves of Qud

Necesse has been fun

i picked up SPRAWL this sale. really fun retro-style shooter so far, the sense of movement is especially satisfying.

I scooped this one up when it launched and just wanted to add the music is also really fantastic if you’re into cyberpunk anime.

An Airport For Aliens Currently Run By Dogs

Viewfinder

Manifold Garden

Void Stranger

Only buy a couple or so games a year these days, been really enjoying an arena fighting game I came across a little while ago. Only just started putting a few hours into it but always appreciate a game that makes you have to work on skill to progress.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/973230/We_Who_Are_About_To_Die/

I have like 5 different arena management/fighter games, is this one worth my time to learn? A bunch if them fail to stick the landing
- I wouldn't say there's much in the way of management, its short fights mostly. Something I like about it are the fairly strong modifiers for each character type and how it pushes you into using them all so you get forced into different types of play.
  
  I'm also trying to mainly support small dev team games these days and I think this made by one person which I find super impressive. You die and restart a lot, which I also enjoy

Element TD2

Twilight Town, a cyberpunk boomer shooter about a guy wanting to give a body to his AI gf.

Gave this one as a gift - Opus Magnum.

Fun and satisfying production puzzler.

Can someone help me remember the name of a certain game? I heard about it in an LTT video. Apparently it's a really cheap 8(+?)-player Steam game that is a sort of magic/wizard free-for-all game that's lots of fun with little strategy. I've been racking my brain trying to remember the name of it.

Songs of conquest and street of rogue

For less than $5 CAD, I picked up Maiden & Spell, an excessively cute sidescrolling shooter a la R-Type, except it's a levelless boss rush with Story and Versus modes. It's got a very Touhou aesthetic (i.e. rather than spaceships or dragons or something, everyone is cute girls).

Story mode is basically a Touhou boss rush, where your character fights 4 monster girls and 2 out of the other 3 human girls, with no level in-between, it's just bosses. There's a threadbare but acceptable story linking them, with each playable character giving a different perspective on the same story, and then there being an epilogue chapter and a bonus extra boss. Story mode has 4 difficulties, the easiest of which is called Cute Mode and is basically unloseable, so even if you've never played a game like this, you can give it a go.

Versus mode is basically a 1v1 fighting game. You and one friend each pick one of the 8 girls and do bullet hells at each other until you see who wins. It's not complex, but it is kind of tactically deep.

The same author is currently working on a sequel, Rabbit & Steel, a very similar game except rather than a versus battler, it's a coop roguelike inspired by MMO raid mechanics. A sneak-peek demo with online multiplayer is available, and it's really fun!

Probably not much this time. I don't think Dredge really falls under lesser known, but I might pick that up. I'll probably get House Flipper 2 - the first one was one of my go-tos for destressing, so I'm hoping the sequel will fill the same niche. Otherwise, I've either bought most of what I've been looking at in previous sales or played it on gamepass/ea play.

I bought Touhou Artificial Dreams In Arcadia during the October sale and it is a bit of a hidden gem for fans of the old SMT JRPG games on SNES. I also picked up Lunacid but have not got that far in it, but it seems like a strong revival of the classic Kings Field games.

Eidolon

I didn't buy them this year but

Software Inc, management game
Ostriv, 18th century city building game
Off-road Mania, 4x4 trials game

Purchased Ready Or Not. I am having a BLAST with this game! It's niche game and I am really into it.

Not sure whether it's "lesser known", but it's old: Rise of Nations

If it were on sale, I'd say Fling To The Finish. But for now, I'll have to probably just wait and see what else is on sale that catches my eye.

I bought The Making of Karateka. Not exactly a game, more like a playable documentary (akin with Atari 50 anniversary collection).

I'm not sure if it's on sale but I'll just keep talking about Revita because it's such a succinct rogue like that blends hollow knight and TBOI very well.

I already owned it, but Banished is on sale for $6.50. I have played so many hours of this game and can't get enough! Once I get bored of my existing setup, I just start over with a new village.

I have shitload of indie games with a fun ideas that I have never really played, but wanted to support.

I picked up Sociable Soccer 24 for the steam deck as I just wanted a simple football game and FIFA doesn’t really work. Pretty good game, the controls can be a bit weird at times but enjoying it for the easy pickup and play style.

UBoat - it’s a u boat game / simulator of sorts. Complex, slow game play as you stalk convoys, set up for the ambush, then escape the destroyers hunting your uboat.

Black Mesa is so fucking good.

Isn't Black Mesa called Half Life?

Unforgettable voyage. Looks like a cute little puzzle game.