22 votes

What are some noteworthy games that aren't available through traditional/common means?

I'm interested in hearing about games that exist off the main map of gaming: games that I can't buy from any of the common storefronts and games that aren't easily playable through an emulator.

Examples of things I'm interested in hearing about:

  • Long-forgotten abandonware
  • Homebrew games for consoles
  • Romhacks
  • Legally dubious fan-games
  • Total conversion mods
  • ARGs
  • Web games (not ones on sites like Kongregate/GameJolt though)
  • Independently distributed games (that you can't get through, say, itch.io)
  • Games for systems that aren't currently emulatable
  • Games that have been removed from distribution
  • Games with servers or content that are no longer operational
  • Anything else you think fits the question, really

Tell me about the game(s) you know of and what makes them noteworthy.

16 comments

  1. [3]
    MimicSquid
    Link
    Some things of interest, in no particular order: Kingdom of Loathing, a long-running free web game. A combination of weird humor and cultural humor, and still getting attention and active...

    Some things of interest, in no particular order:

    • Kingdom of Loathing, a long-running free web game. A combination of weird humor and cultural humor, and still getting attention and active development 15+ years after its start.
    • After The End, a full post-apocalyptic conversion mod aimed at North America for Crusader Kings 2. Completely custom countries, map, religions... It's crazy.
    • Old World Blues, a Fallout-themed total conversion mod for Hearts of Iron 4; set in and around the New Vegas era, but covering from Central America to Washington, and with plans to expand into Texas. It's really good, shifting resources and mechanics around to take advantage of the post-apocalyptic world.
    • Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, a free, community developed zombie horror survival game. Expansive, and continually growing. Not only is is a blast to play, but you can also join in the development if you've got ideas for new stuff.
    8 votes
    1. moonbathers
      Link Parent
      After the End is fantastic, there's so much depth to it. I always enjoy playing as one of the Norse tribes and keeping the pagans safe from Christendom.

      After the End is fantastic, there's so much depth to it. I always enjoy playing as one of the Norse tribes and keeping the pagans safe from Christendom.

      5 votes
    2. Fal
      Link Parent
      Old World Blues and the Kaiserreich mod are both really good HOI4 mods, especially with all of the external content for Kaiserreich.

      Old World Blues and the Kaiserreich mod are both really good HOI4 mods, especially with all of the external content for Kaiserreich.

      2 votes
  2. Saigot
    Link
    These both might be a little mainstream by this threads standards but here: Dwarf fortress for over a decade or so was only available on the creators website, it is getting a steam release soonish...

    These both might be a little mainstream by this threads standards but here:

    • Dwarf fortress for over a decade or so was only available on the creators website, it is getting a steam release soonish though. Perhaps some of his other projects may be interesting. It's a city builder known for it's crushing difficulty and slavish devotion to detail (each of your 100 dwarves has sperately tracked teeth, and the entire world you generate does a plate techtonics simulation). When Toady (the creator) created the game he had no experience with game development, it has been in development for over 10 years, maintained solely by him. The game plays entirely in ASCII (although you can install texture packs). This game is an uncompromising labour of love.

    • NetHacks: This is a classic game that is ancient, yet it is still maintained today. It's a classic roguelite from before the genre existed that is also has ASCII based graphics by default. it's here. I think it captures the spirit of the original rogue while still being actively developed.

    7 votes
  3. [2]
    wcerfgba
    Link
    Notpron is a web puzzle game from 2004: http://www.notpron.org/notpron/

    Notpron is a web puzzle game from 2004: http://www.notpron.org/notpron/

    5 votes
    1. kfwyre
      Link Parent
      I loved Notpron back in the day. Great lateral thinking puzzles. I wish I could remember how far I eventually ended up getting in it. Also, it's advertised on the site now, but for anyone that's...

      I loved Notpron back in the day. Great lateral thinking puzzles. I wish I could remember how far I eventually ended up getting in it.

      Also, it's advertised on the site now, but for anyone that's unaware: the developer of Notpron released another self-developed game called Supraland that's excellent. The game's a blend of genres, and I've seen it compared to Portal, The Legend of Zelda series, and metroidvanias, but really it is its own game. The fact that he did it entirely himself is beyond impressive. It has a DLC coming out soon that's an entirely new campaign, and I'm very much looking forward to it.

      Supraland even has a deliberate nod to Notpron, referencing it in game alongside a puzzle that requires lateral-thinking to solve.

      3 votes
  4. [4]
    tunneljumper
    Link
    This is more of a "genre" or type of game than any specific one, and I don't have a specific term for them (if such a term actually exists), but: my grandparents back in the 90's had these...

    This is more of a "genre" or type of game than any specific one, and I don't have a specific term for them (if such a term actually exists), but: my grandparents back in the 90's had these portable handheld games that were battery-powered, had a non-backlit LCD screen with seven segment-style graphic displays (hopefully that's descriptive enough), and played very basic games. The two that stick out in my mind particularly were solitaire and a fishing game that was shaped like the handle of a fishing rod.

    I don't know how "noteworthy" that is especially compared to the kind of replies you were probably expecting, but I think that those games were popular among senior citizens in the 80s and 90s, which is probably worth something.

    4 votes
    1. [2]
      cfabbro
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      You can actually play a bunch of those old backlit LCD games right on the Internet Archive site, if you're interested. https://archive.org/details/handheldhistory And crazy as it is, they are...

      You can actually play a bunch of those old backlit LCD games right on the Internet Archive site, if you're interested. https://archive.org/details/handheldhistory

      And crazy as it is, they are actually still being made even today... Ashens very occasionally still reviews the knock off "POP Station" ones on his channel. E.g. one from last month

      5 votes
      1. kfwyre
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        The Internet Archive and MAME teams impress me so much. I'm playing Simon right in my browser, on hardware that looks exactly like the device I had as a kid.

        The Internet Archive and MAME teams impress me so much. I'm playing Simon right in my browser, on hardware that looks exactly like the device I had as a kid.

        2 votes
    2. DrStone
      Link Parent
      So you mean Radica Games’ Bass Fishin’? I loved that one as a kid! As for the others, it sounds like the Tiger Electronics Hans held games. Street fighter II was my favorite. Looks like Hasboro is...

      fishing game that was shaped like the handle of a fishing rod.

      So you mean Radica Games’ Bass Fishin’? I loved that one as a kid!

      As for the others, it sounds like the Tiger Electronics Hans held games. Street fighter II was my favorite. Looks like Hasboro is bringing some of them back

      3 votes
  5. [3]
    nothis
    (edited )
    Link
    Whenever people talk about SNES emulation, I bring up Live A Live. It's IMO the best RPG on the system, a late, originally Japan-only Squaresoft RPG that got a fantastic fan translation. It's an...

    Whenever people talk about SNES emulation, I bring up Live A Live. It's IMO the best RPG on the system, a late, originally Japan-only Squaresoft RPG that got a fantastic fan translation. It's an episodic game (the episodes can be done in any order) spanning 7 different eras, from stone age to the far future. There's a Western themed episode, some space horror, one set in medieval China. It's so varied and fun. The combat mechanics are interesting, too, going for a chess-like grid system that I haven't really seen in other games since.

    I remember loving this as a kid: Mindrover: The Europa Project. It's a robot building game (the backstory is that it's scientists running robot fights in their free time while stationed in a lab on the Jupiter moon Europa), kinda a hardware-programming game. You drag around wires and add different parts to robot chassis and let them compete in various challenges, races, laser fights, etc. It's kinda the Robot Wars fantasy. No idea how it holds up today (and I'm pretty sure there's some modern day indie equivalent?) but it's quite special to me.

    I'm a bit of a fan of Jonathan Blow and he made some rather weird games before Braid that you have to dig really deep to actually come across. My favorite is a game prototype called Painter. It starts out as you having to "copy" masterpiece paintings and getting paid for accuracy (with a kinda MS Paint interface, which makes the results rather hilarious). But then it turns more freeform and you basically have to guess different art collector's taste based on their weird verbal reactions to your paintings. It's kinda about making sense of statements like "I love the strength of the colors but also the fragility of the composition" or something. IMO this could be turned into a legit great game (maybe not even about painting per se?) but it's just a prototype, of course. It's such a great idea.

    There's a text-based game called Alter Ego from 1986 that is maybe the eeriest "life sim" game I have ever played. It was made by a psychologist and forces you to make decisions that branch out into different outcomes. Somehow it feels like the game really knows you, some of the turns really hit you as it flat out tells you your alter ego is becoming miserable because of some specific childhood choice or something. It's been a while but I still remember the impact this had on me, going in blind.

    One of the most unique games I've played in recent years must be Mirror Drop. I guess it's not that obscure since I came across it because it won the best graphics award at last year's IGF Awards. It's an abstract, fully raytraced world in which your challenge lies in making sense of the mindbending visuals. Infinite mirrors, curved reflections, concepts like up and down loosing their meaning. The goal is rather simple, it's basically guiding a marble by changing different surfaces to become magnetic (or twisting gravity?), but it's getting absurdly hard towards the end. Loved my time with this, it's certainly something I never seen before.

    4 votes
    1. [2]
      Tygrak
      Link Parent
      I tried to play alter ego, got to the adolescence part and just had to quit because of how painfully straight it was. It's actually incredible how many scenarios the game gave me that went...

      I tried to play alter ego, got to the adolescence part and just had to quit because of how painfully straight it was. It's actually incredible how many scenarios the game gave me that went something like "do you want to flirt with this random girl/be straight?", and me responding with "no?" and after that the game said that I have a girlfriend anyways. Ok I guess... I guess that's why the game is called alter ego, because I certainly couldn't even get close to creating ego.

      2 votes
      1. Akir
        Link Parent
        Ha! I had very much the same experience. It's weird because there are all of these little moments of male/male intimacy that seem like they could go somewhere but they never do. :( But now I'm...

        Ha! I had very much the same experience.

        It's weird because there are all of these little moments of male/male intimacy that seem like they could go somewhere but they never do. :(

        But now I'm somewhat curious what playing the game as a female would be like.

        3 votes
  6. parsley
    Link
    Randomizers Usually come in the form of romhacks. They shuffle stuff (item locations, map shape, pokemons, stats/abilities, etc) and add QoL to older games. They tend to cater the speedrunning...

    Randomizers
    Usually come in the form of romhacks. They shuffle stuff (item locations, map shape, pokemons, stats/abilities, etc) and add QoL to older games. They tend to cater the speedrunning crowd, as you are expected to have good knowledge about the game, but there are also a lot of resources to get started. They make wonderful race games (a bunch of people play the same seed at the same time and try to "solve it" the fastest). My favorites are A Link to the Past Randomizer (very fun to play and has lots of options and game modes) and Final Fantasy 4 Free Enterprise (not played much but changes the game to an open world game where you have to find progression items and characters until you feel ready to fight the final boss).

    The Nameless Mod
    It's one of the many Deus Ex mods. It is rather divisive as the plot is silly: The events are serious in tone but the world is a VR/MMO version of a (real) Deus Ex forum, so there is a lot of (older) internet silliness without getting into meme territory (much). Beyond that It has a lot of effort put into it and a lot of love for the original game: It has actual branches in the story, a better hub you go back to between every mission, etc

    Streets or Rage Remake
    A remake of Streets or Rage 1-3 all together in one game. A great tribute to the series with amazing music. It got C&D'ed on release but you can still find it if you know where to look.

    AM2R / Another Metroid 2 Remake
    A Metroid 2 remake in the style of Zero Mission. Comes with multiple modes (Traditional, Fusion suit mode and a randomizer built in!). Same fate as above.

    Anything on MetroidConstruction
    Its a website that hosts Metroid romhacks, mostly Super Metroid. There are some very good Super Metroid romhacks there, like Project Base, Metroid Nature or Metroid Arcade: Endless Mode (this one make Super Metroid into a roguelike / score attack game with randomized map, temporary powerups and more).

    Megaman Unlimited
    A fanmade NES Megaman game. I'm terrible at these but the part that I played was very fun.

    4 votes
  7. cfabbro
    (edited )
    Link
    I can think of a few that potentially fit the bill. Ur-Quan Masters is a fan completed and expanded version of Star Control 2 that was made after the creators released the source code for the...

    I can think of a few that potentially fit the bill.

    Ur-Quan Masters is a fan completed and expanded version of Star Control 2 that was made after the creators released the source code for the original game's partially completed 3DO port.

    Ultima V: Lazarus is a fan remake of Ultima V, but completely rewritten from the ground up using the Dungeon Siege 3D engine.

    And you can find more examples of similar projects here too:
    https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FanRemake

    2 votes
  8. Akir
    Link
    Super Locomotive is an old arcade game by Sega that never got anything close to a home conversion. It's very likely the reason why is because the only song in it is a blatantly illegal arrangement...

    Super Locomotive is an old arcade game by Sega that never got anything close to a home conversion. It's very likely the reason why is because the only song in it is a blatantly illegal arrangement of Rydeen by Yellow Magic Orchestra - though to be frank most of the appeal comes from how well the song drives the action. You basically play as a train navigating a series of parallel rails where the entire world is out to kill you. It's loads of fun.

    Shoot Range is a hex based strategy game for people who are tired of hex based strategy games. Because it was only ever released for a fairly obscure Japanese computer, it's not well known or easy to get a hold of. There are a few really good innovations to the formula. All units are robots, and instead of HP each unit has its own hex grid. Hidden behind that grid is a number of engines. You have to shoot all the engines in order to down a unit, and each weapon does different kinds of damage; some let you choose where to hit, and some of them will hit randomly. Each unit also has a directional heading and the field has a fog of war, so unit placement is extremely important.

    We will be here forever if you get me started on Japanese computer games. They released a ton of them for systems that never effectively left the country. People in the Nordic countries where the MSX was released have a small taste of them, but there is so much more to learn about. There's a lot more obscure games released throughout Southeast Asia.

    2 votes