I know of a lot of indie games that are actually really good, and I’m hoping to find some others. Here’s my list:
- BPM: Bullets Per Minute
- Hedon
- Ion Maiden
- Prodeus
- Project Warlock
- Tower 57
- Wrath: Aeon Of Ruin If this list is incomplete, help by expanding it :)
- APE OUT - You’re a gorilla that kills people before they kill you. Music, art style, and gameplay mix very well.
- Crab Champions - You’re a crab with a gun facing waves of crabs and other stuff. Things get really insane with all the modifiers you pick up.
- Iconoclasts - Beautiful art style from a single developer. Story hits on some heavy topics which may not be for everyone. My only complaint is he really needed a dedicated writer to clean up the story a bit.
- Little Inferno - You burn stuff in a fireplace.
- Party Hard - You’re just a dude that wants some sleep. So, you become a serial killer.
Katana Zero
FTL - Faster Than Light
Divinity: Original Sin II
Nova Drift
Into The Breach
I mean I’ll second Nova Drift, great asteroids-esque roguelite… But the other three were all hugely popular in their time, not exactly hidden gems.
OP asked for games that too few people have played, not for hidden gems. That is not the same. For example, compared to the 500.000 reviews Baldurs Gate 3 has on steam, Divinity: Original Sin II, despite also being one of the best rpgs, has only 150.000.
FTL, which is easily in the top 5 of the best roguelites ever made has only 50.000 reviews, which is very little compered to Hades for example, which has 200.000.
Into the breach was never really popular, it has only 15.000 reviews on steam.
If you ask most gamers about those they usually have never heard about them or at least have not played those themselves. I would not call them particularly hidden but I think they deserve to be played by more people and that is what OP asked about.
Bastion
I recall Bastion winning GoTY from some major publications.
Such a good game. Those guys are my favourite developers.
- Xonotix (Fork of Rexuiz, Quake 3 Arena + Unreal Tournament)
- Freedoom (Libre Alternative to Doom)
- LibreQuake (Relatively new)
- Mindustry (I think)
- Mineclone 2 (Minetest Engine, Libre Alternative to Minecraft)
- Speed Dreams
All Free(As in ‘Freedom’) And Open Source
Croromon.
Checked out a gameplay video and it looks nice!
Global Agenda
Mutazione & Saltsea Chronicles are two favorites of mine, from the same developer, which don’t seem to get much attention.
They’re both narrative focused games, with a lot of world building and character development.
I enjoyed both of them greatly, and if you like chill story based games, I think you’d enjoy them!
Herzog Zwei
This would have been a correct answer 30 years ago, and it probably will be a correct answer in another 30 years.
I don’t how popular it is but I’ve been playing Balatro. Excellent card game
vivid/statis
Venice 2089
Clodhoppers
When the Past was AroundEasy red 2. Discovered it looking for steam deck verified games. Kind of the feel of call of duty 2 and battlefield 1942 mixed together. It’s cheap and goes on sale for really cheap. Has some weird systems in it but it’s fun to just zone out and play through the maps. There is a ton of maps.
It’s a WW2 fps with vehicles and squads. You take over objectives on the map and either attack or defend. For whatever reason it has a full inventory system where you can loot any body. You can play different roles in the squad. As squad leader you can call in artillery if your radio Man is alive. You can also command your squad. The AI is alright, not the best but it works.