Games

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

Necesse has been fun

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/

An Airport For Aliens Currently Run By Dogs

Viewfinder

Manifold Garden

Caves of Qud

Gave this one as a gift - Opus Magnum.

Fun and satisfying production puzzler.

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 didn't buy them this year but

• Software Inc, management game

• Ostriv, 18th century city building game

• Off-road Mania, 4x4 trials game

Songs of conquest and street of rogue

Element TD2

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.

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!

Eidolon

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.

Unforgettable voyage. Looks like a cute little puzzle game.

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.

Black Mesa is so fucking good.

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.

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.

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

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.