I just go some Steam giftcards from a friend and want to put them to good use.
Also FYI my PC isn’t the most powerful in the world so I can’t play anything super high rez.
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u mentioned below that you like RPGs, so if in particular party-based, tactics RPG gameplay is ur jam, im gonna recommend some of my personal hits that are mostly indies that I’ve also rec’d in the past:
Creator of Another World - $13.29, Demo Available - More roguelite than roguelike, fairly relaxing difficulty; a power fantasy that essentially an ‘isekai’ actually made into a videogame that simulates most of a game world, with inspiration from the roguelike Elona. Made by one indie Japanese dev. Has basic visual modding.
Our Adventurer Guild - $10.49, Demo Available - Assume the role of a guildmaster who is responsible for hiring adventurers and controlling them in battle to complete quests. Presentation in art and text is amateurish imo, charmingly reminiscent of like, 2000s AdventureQuest; but party-building possibilities are vast and combat is tight. Made by one indie German dev. Has basic variable modding. Will have its one DLC coming out soonTM that rounds out some of the higher-level classes and introduces spears among other things.
Together in Battle - $19.99, Demo Available - Not on sale, but promoting it anyway because it just entered 1.0 nearly two months ago and I think it’s a v well polished indie RPG that’s being slept on. You assume the role of an arena team manager, hiring, training, and controlling them in fights, but also get involved in a political whodunit to fulfill your goals. The city of TIB, Kalkerapur, receives quite a bit of love and development in ways not shown in the settings of the prior two games. Made by one dev who used to make the Telepath RPG games back in the Flash era. Has custom campaign modding.
Stolen Realm - $7.99 - Procgen RPG with multiplayer capability in which every enemy and, in multiplayer, every one of the six party members can move and act simultaneously on their side’s turn. Has a mix-and-match skill system similar to what is found in the Divinity: Original Sin series, and approximates it in environmental interactions. Chaotic enough in base game, supposedly more so with its ‘Chaos Pack’ DLC. Warning that having a high number of visual effects on the actors and field will slow down your computer, as it did for my mid-high-tier gaming laptop. Made by an indie studio.
Horizon’s Gate - $9.99 - Sailing-based, exploration-and-trading-type RPG in 16-bit artstyle. Also has extensive modding capabilities and a small modding scene. Consider also its predecessor Alvora Tactics ($4.99) which is less developed, but is more of a focused, proc-gen dungeon crawler. Made by one dev, all of their games are consistent quality.
Wildermyth -$16.24 - Tactical RPG that’s very folklore- and storybook-themed in presentation, where one adventure can happen across generations of an adventuring party. The only project of an indie studio that announced it planned to dissolve(?) in some time after achieving its goals with this game. Extensive modding capabilities, small modding scene.
Hero’s Adventure: Road to Passion - $10.79 - Wuxia-genre tactical RPG with pixel graphics and isometric view. Moderate modding scene, but most of is in Mandarin.
My Time at Sandrock - $19.99 - Farming/building simulator and action RPG, easy difficulty, set in a desert town. Made by a moderate Chinese studio. Has small modding scene. The sequel, ‘My Time at Evershine’, is currently under dev.
Kenshi - $11.99 - Jank engine, jank visuals, bleak survival squad management game in which getting the shit beat out of your homies and crawling away to live another day is the standard gameplay loop. Two of the three regional powers are unrepentant slavers, and destroying them is hard but honest work. Made by a small indie studio. Extensive modding scene.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind -
$6.99Bethesda is part of Microsoft, which I believe is still on the BDS list, so consider pirating - Bethesda Games-type modding scene. Get a modlist through the program Wabbajack for either OpenMW or base engine, hit play, enjoy Bethesda’s worldbuilding at its peak.Crusader Kings III - $14.99 - Only Paradox game I’ve played. It’s a nice ruler- and dynasty-simulator. Large modding scene.
Shooters?
Strike Force Heroes - 13.99 - Remake of a Flash game title, a 2D arena shooter, good for mindless fun and short matches. Made by an indie studio.
XCOM 2 Collection - $8.10 - Pretty much the primary “shooter” tactical turn-based game. Extensive modding, moderate modding scene.
Jagged Alliance 3 - $22.49 - The other “shooter” tactical game that I liked, with a focus on contemporary small arms and extensive weapon modding capabilities as your gang of mercenaries rampage across a fictional French African state. There’s a mod in which you can play as the PLA (I haven’t tried yet). Moderate modding capabilities and small scene.
Gunsmith Simulator - $15.49 - You’re a gunsmith who fixes, upgrade, and recolors people’s request for guns, and can shoot them at the range. I’m somewhat disappointed there’s still no machine guns to dissect and customize, but it’s a small thing. Made by small Polish studio. Small modding capabilities.
Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque - $5.09 - Qassam-Brigades, death-to-the-IDF simulator.
I back Hero’s Adventure: Road to Passion, a wonderful game, tonnes of content, and wonderful DLC. Get it.
My game is very easy to run if you’re into retro stuff and super cheap, and I love it when comrades play it.
Otherwise Inscryption was a pretty neat time if you haven’t played it yet.
Cavern of Dreams, $5.19 - Short and sweet collectathon 3d platformer. I finished it in 8 hours and it doesn’t overstay its welcome. N64 visual style (you can disable the blur filter in settings if you hate it).
Death’s Door, $5 - Cute soulslike combat in an overhead isometric view, not too difficult. You play as a crow, a reaper of souls, tracking down the one soul who escaped from you. You may have to lower settings depending on how bad your gpu is.
Paradise Killer, $5 - A detective game in a world of (sexy) Gods. You have to identify suspects and build a case against them. There is no objectively “correct” culprit. There is also a beautiful 3d environment to explore with some collectables.
Tunic, $15 - Similar combat to death’s door but with the added element that progression is often gated not by items, but knowledge checks. You collect pages of a game manual for Tunic written in a language you can’t read. One of my absolute favorite games.
Sea of Stars, $22.74 - Very fun turn-based rpg that reminds me a lot of Chrono Trigger. I had 45 hours playtime and that’s before the 10 hour free DLC that just released. Timed QTE events for every attack and block a la the (Paper) Mario RPG series.
Rollerdrome, $7.50 - Rollerdrome is the perfect video game. Arcadey shooter on rollerskates with dodge rolls and also you have to do tony hawk style tricks to reload your guns. Unfortunately, Take Two “laid off” the entire team who made it, so consider pirating it instead of buying.
I loved Sea of Stars! Same studio did The Messenger and they have neat little tie-ins. Really felt like they took everything from the 16-bit action RPG genre and distilled out just the good stuff. Lovely game
I liked Death’s Door, very cute and it’s not a huge time sink, think you can beat it in a couple days.
My personal list, if it’s starred it means you can play as the communists.
Strategy
- Command & Conquer: Generals ⭐
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 ⭐
- Starcraft Brood War
- Call to Arms – Gates of Hell: Ostfront ⭐
- Men of War: Assault Squad 2 ⭐
- Chess (Lichess)
Shooter
- Hell Let Loose ⭐
- Rising Storm 2: Vietnam ⭐
- Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (Classic)
RPG
- TES: Skyrim
- TES: Oblivion
Starcraft is on the Blizzard platform (for free!), Lichess is online (and free!), everything else should be on Steam.
Someone on hexbear recommend outer wilds to me a while back, I’d like to thank that person…
It was me, I take Xi bucks in lieu of personal thanks these days though
The renembis in the mail comrade
Seriously tho, outer wilds is a slow burn but I really like it
The Messenger is a real gem of a game. Ninja Gaiden meets Metroid, lovely pixel art (should run on anything), a banging chiptune soundtrack, super tight gameplay, funny writing, and it’s currently 80% off. If you like platformers and metroidvanias you got to check it out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We4N8-GC57E
Listening to this while going top speed through the level, doin sick ninja moves fuckin wrecking shop, it’s some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing video games, the whole game is such a treat when you unlock all the movement upgrades and get good at flying around everywhere
i got the division 2 for like 7 bucks and im having fun with it so far. its pretty mindless which im liking atm cause life is tiring lol.
One of those games (maybe both) deepthroats cops and the troops so fucking hard
yeah all these tom clancy games do. i just turn my brain off to enjoy it.
A Hat in Time is a fun 3D platformer
Subnautica: survive in the ocean after a shipwreck… In spaaaaace!Know you were asking Steam specifically but the current free Epic game is neat. I add them to my Steam library sometimes. https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/sable
+1 to recommend Sable, especially for free! Basically it’s like if breath of the wild didn’t have combat and instead was about exploration and quests. You play as a young adult going on a coming of age quest in which you learn about the different professions you could choose. Set in a post apocalyptic world, but a wholesome one. You get to ride on an upgradable Star Wars pod racer.
Free on Epic, $8.74 on Steam.
The following games are cheap (lower than 10 euros), not graphically demanding at all, and range from good to being masterpieces in my opinion:
10/10
- CrossCode
- Hollow Knight
- ZeroRanger
9/10
- Katamari Damacy Reroll
- Spelunky
- Terraria (with friends, 8/10 without)
- Rabi-Ribi (it has horny anime cringe, but it is an excellent metroidvania)
8/10
- Xanadu Next
- Copy Kitty
- Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen
- Pseudoregalia
- Rabbit & Steel (with friends)
- Hades
- Ys Origin
- Ys: The Oath in Felghana
- Void Stranger
- Portal & Portal 2
- Ori and the Will of Wisps (Ori 2)
- Celeste
- Undertale
7.5/10
- Grim Dawn
- Minishoot’ Adventures
- Ori and the Blind Forest
I’ll second Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen. I wish Dragon’s Dogma 2 ran better on lower-end systems/was less intense, though the character creator received a nice bump in quality from DD:DA
I like your style. I see somebody rate ZeroRanger 10/10, I know we’re cool.
CrossCode is 70% off
Any of the persona games or metaphor
I’ve been enthralled by Valheim lately. It’s probably one of, it not the best of the open-world-survival-crafting-RPG genre.
And pretty easy to mod to boot, with a ton of mods ranging from extending what’s available in the game already (like adding all weapon types and magic from the meadows biome and above) to game changing systems like classes, abilities, and perks.
It feels like the middle point between Minecraft and Terraria, with a smooth progression curve with clear checkpoints to guide the player through the tech stages while offering some homesteading and down time activities.
It pretty much entirely replaced Minecraft and Terraria for me due to those reasons. Plus, building in Valheim is pretty satisfying. Much prefer having material limitations as opposed to the other two’s gravity defying builds.
Only wish it was a bit more optimized, because my builds tend to be tall and dense and the game really doesn’t like it. And modding could be handled better I guess, Zomboid took a page off of Rimworld’s approach to the workshop and Valheim could do that as well.
Valheim is definitely a game I loved, but man there is still a lot of jank to it that I just cannot stand to bear any longer. All the jank is bearable up until the mistlands and then I just cant deal with the floaty combat, dying destroying hours of skill grinding, inventory space being so limited, and the procedural generation putting some stuff in ridiculous places. All of it leads to pretty poor single player experience (at that point), where it feels like having other players with you is a downright necessity.
But as you stated mods do fix quite a lot of what is broken or should really just be in the game to begin with.
Yeah. The devs did say that the next update isn’t just going to be the deep north, hopefully they learn something from the most popular mods (same as rimworld is doing, integrating some of them into the base game).
Please Touch The Artwork is a cool relaxed puzzle game based on real paintings (£2.15)
Citizen Sleeper is one of my favourite games ever; a really narrative rich (but not long winded) sci-fi game with fantastic worldbuilding, vibes, and politics that uses a novel streamlined version of TTRPG dice to do decision making and resources stuff. Really sublime (£5.02) The sequel is on sale but is new so is more like £15.
Mad Max is an open-world vehicular combat (and occassional Batman game style parry combat section) game that was the best 7-out-of-10 type game when it game out but has aged well & is genuinely a great bit of canon Mad Max lore and worldbuilding if you care about that series. (£2.39)
Thronebreaker: Witcher Tales is a narrative RPG based around playing Gwent (sometimes with traditional rules, sometimes with unique interest puzzle battles) that has writing as good or better than the Witcher 3. It wasn’t a hit, despite being excellent, and so they tried to turn Gwent into Hearthstone later, but Thronebreaker is standalone and still my favourite Witcher game. (£3.39)
Swordship is a fast, roguelite indie ‘schmup’ where you pilot a superfast boat through heavily sci-fi militarised sea dodging turrents and other dangers. I found it difficult, but addictive with a cool style and soundtrack. (£0.84)
Invisible Inc is a fantastic turn-based strategy heist game with a great art style and really good gameplay. I’m quiet a picky turn-based nerd and this is one of the best. It’s also not too punishing (unless you want it to be) and is relatively short to finish a run in a satisfying way compared to longer campaigns. (£3.74)
Steamworld Heist is my favourite of the various Steamworld games. It’s basically robot Firefly and a 2D turn-based shooter-strategy game where your pirate captain & crew board ships, fight your way to cargo with a variety of cool weapons (and hats) & escape with it. (£1.13)
Yoku’s Island Express is a unique, colourful, joyous platformer-pinball hybrid game where your little dung beetle (with dung ball) slides, pinballs, jumps through a lovely, relaxing island metroidvania world. Just lovely all round. (£3.19)
Sludge Life is a stylised, low-rez, 3D open world adventure game with excellent lofi 90s hip hop meets chillwave vibes and a banger soundtrack including the best in game rapper since Parappa; BIG MUD! (£2.55)
Ape Out is a top-down indie action game where you play as a giant ape escaping its captors and splattering armed mercanaries against walls with a Saul Bass animation style and top drawer jazz-drum soundtrack that syncs with your hits. (£2.55)
Monster Train is probably the best roguelite card game since Slay the Spire with more variation and quicker to get into, where you play the forces of hell trying to protect a big train careening through the seven circles to relight hells fires while battling those irritating crusade-fash coded angels heaven has sent to stop you. (£6.29)
Crypt of the Necrodancer is a roguelite homage to old Zelda (so much so Nintendo eventually had them do an actual Zelda version) that’s also a hardcore rhythm game where you move and attack with the beat (and so do all the enemies). As someone who really cannot play rhythm games and never even beat the fourth level I still loved my time with it. It’s got an all time banger soundtrack and the best shopkeeper in games. (£1.27)
So funny story about my Citizen Sleeper playthrough, spoilers for the first few hours ahead:
spoiler
I thought you could block the tracking on you before the bounty hunter arrives, and when I failed to do so by what seemed to be one in-game hour I was so mad I stopped playing. I eventually went back and I have actually platinumed the game. It’s pretty cool how you can take the early endings and then keep on playing for alternate ones.
Both Citizen Sleeper games are fantastic. The story pacing is great. Be warned that you can softlock yourself really easily in 2 at the very beginning if you go straight to the big mission.
Once you get the flow though, it’s pretty easy to maintain the good path. One slip up can snowball you to a fail state though
I absolutely adored the sequel and I wasn’t expecting it to live up to the first since it’s one of the best and most effecting games I’ve ever played.
I like how the sequel managed to expand on the first game in a way that felt natural. Having to maintain and manage a crew and ship while also juggling all the relationships of the belters and running from the repo man just feels like the next step after helping to restore the Eye
Monster Train got a really good sequel too, you can use mushroom guys that stack with each other 10/10
I love all things mushrooms so once I’ve (finally) had my full of the first one I’ll check it out.
These are some good picks, I enjoyed SteamWorld Heist and Monster Train. Haven’t played their sequels yet, how about you? I also had a good time with Mad Max
I haven’t to be honest. I came to Monster Train kind of late and find myself going back to Steamworld Heist every year or so and it still feeling satisfying and fresh so when I’ve had time I’ve experimented with the other Steamworld games. Haven’t found one that’s stuck for me like heist though.
SteamDB is useful, you can see all games on sale and filter by review score and discount percentage.
My reccs:
Cobalt Core - Spaceship combat similar to FTL with amazing vibes. Technically a roguelike deckbuilder but don’t let that scare you
Drova: Forsaken Kin - One of the best games in recent years, pixel art RPG with great combat
Songs of Conquest - Spiritual successor to Heroes of Might and Magic III with beautiful pixel art
Pathway - Indiana Jones inspired game where you fuck up Nazis in turn-based combat
SteamWorld Dig 2 - Fun mining game, satisfying game loop, chill vibes
Risen - Probably my all time favourite game, amazing eurojank RPG made by the developers that made Gothic
Drova is fantastic! I was really impressed with it. Thanks for the other recs.
