Obscure Indie Game Recommendations for the Steam Autumn Sale 2022

I play a ton of indie games, and a bunch of my favorites I’ve played since the Summer Sale are currently on sale. I don’t think these games get the attention they deserve and they’re all worth your time, so take a look if any of them catch your interest! Early Access Updates These are games I’ve recommended in the past, which have received updates since I last discussed them. Looks like only Scarlet Hollow is discounted right now, but they're all great! * Scarlet Hollow is one of the best narrative games I’ve ever played, and it’s releasing its fourth chapter on the 29th. I love its mechanical approach to narrative gaming– it feels more like a tabletop RPG than a visual novel in a lot of ways. Cannot recommend it highly enough. * The Void Rains Upon Her Heart is my favorite shmup I’ve ever played. Tons of content for every skill level, a charming and singular aesthetic, great music, and it receives near-constant content updates. In the last few months, the developer completely redesigned one of the central mechanics of the game (charge shots) and greatly improved it. * Poker Quest has left early access! I really like its spin on roguelike deckbuilding; instead of building a deck you collect and upgrade equipment and use a standard deck of 52 playing cards to activate them during battles. I’m not usually a fan of crunchy resource management in games, but something about its specific balancing act and how all of the many different classes intersect with it really clicks with me. On Steam and On Sale * Mysteries Under Lake Ophelia is a bite-sized spooky little fishing game with surprisingly compelling mechanics. I was shocked by how engaging I found the fishing and I thought that the horror elements, while slight, were a nice capper on the experience. * Skala is one of the most unique puzzle platformers I’ve ever played, thanks to the fact that most of its puzzles rely on and actively embrace the jankiness inherent in its mechanics. I was blown away by how good it is at getting you to engage with mechanics that seem like bugs but actually result in fantastic puzzles. And it’s free! * The Case of the Golden Idol is a great murder mystery detective game. It’s less wide open than something like Obra Dinn or Outer Wilds, but I really enjoyed the format of collecting clues as individual words and then slotting them in the correct places on the case summary to figure out what happened. * Yoiyami Dancers: Twilight Danmaku Dancers is essentially a sidescrolling bullet hell shmup by way of Crypt of the Necrodancer. It’s a great gimmick! Really fun and unique mechanics with a high skill ceiling and great level and boss design. * Circadian Dice is a super solid roguelike dice-builder with a huge variety of classes, levels, and mechanics. * Taiji is an incredibly good Witness-like. Great puzzles, great secrets, no text, highly recommend. * Helen’s Mysterious Castle is a tiny RPG Maker game with a very cool battle system– every combat is 1v1, and all of your attacks have cooldown, attack, and defense values. There’s a surprising depth to the mechanics here; I found it super compelling * Squishcraft I know how this one looks okay but trust me, this is one of the most inventive puzzle games ever made. On Steam and Not On Sale Turns out a few of the games I wrote about ahead of time are not discounted. Oops! I do still highly recommend them all, though. * A Little to the Left is just so cozy and satisfying! * 14 Minesweeper Variants is a worthy entry in the long line of incredibly good minesweeper logic puzzle games after Hexcells and Tametsi. It has legitimately the best procedural generation of logic puzzles I have ever seen, and the variants all result in interesting and challenging puzzles. * Environmental Station Alpha Did you know that the guy behind Baba Is You is also behind one of the best metroidvanias ever made? I sure didn’t! Great 2D metroid-like with an incredible grappling hook and an absolutely staggering number of secrets. Did you like Tunic? If you did, you must check this one out. * Vacant Kingdom is a top down twin stick bullet hell/puzzle game. It’s got charming art, extremely funny writing, tight and challenging gameplay with great accessibility options, and secrets! Not on Steam * ECHO is a free NSFW gay furry psychological horror/romance visual novel. And it’s so good. This is the first visual novel I’ve ever played where I actually finished all of the routes– it took me maybe 30 hours total. The horror is really affecting and varied, the writing is incredible, the story is deeply engrossing, and the cast of characters is very wide and extremely well developed. I can’t believe how well this game just absolutely nails the dynamic of a group of friends that were only really friends out of convenience, have drifted apart, and are trying to reunite with each other. Also, I recommend the routes in this order: Leo, Carl, Jenna, TJ, Flynn. * Slice and Dice is another great roguelike dice-builder. This one is more restrained than Circadian Dice in its mechanics, but it gives you more potential to really break the game open with busted synergies. I think its collection of items that manipulate the relative positions of your dice faces are super interesting and innovative, and it’s a ton of fun to figure out how to abuse them. * And finally, Tux And Fanny. If you buy any game on this list, please make it this one. Tux and Fanny is a point and click adventure game where you play as titular friends Tux and Fanny, a cat, and a flea. You get to solve puzzles, play minigames, collect achievements, talk to your friends, read books, listen to music, do guided meditations, look at the clouds, collect bugs, flowers, and birds, and so much more. It’s nonsensical, whimsical, cozy, disarming, and disorienting all at once. It’s stuck with me like no other game ever has; I still think about it almost every day, even though I played it almost a year ago. Please give it a try! Previous Recommendation Posts All of the recommendations from my previous posts still apply. If nothing here is quite what you're looking for, maybe take a look through these as well. Tons of great recommendations in the comments on these, too! * Summer 2022 * Autumn 2021 --- And that's it from me! If you have any games you'd like to recommend, please leave a comment! I'm always looking for more indie games to try. Thanks for reading! submitted by /u/carnaxcce [link] [comments]
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