How dare you :P

Great thread idea. Hmm...

Honestly, there's a lot! Honestly, I didn't expect Aliens Dark Descent to be as good as it is. I went into it expecting to bounce off, thinking it would be a bit crap but it's actually very engrossing.

For me it was Sleeping Dogs. I got it on a whim almost entirely because it was very cheap, and it quickly became my second favourite GTA after San An. Played it on the Deck: there was some install-time jank and the text is way too small, but it otherwise ran great and was lots of fun.

I can think of a few, but since I literally just stopped playing one of the titles that came to mind, I'm going to name that one: Placid Plastic Duck Simulator.

It's a weird little simulation game that does exactly what it says on the tin, and has ProtonDB Platinum and Steam Deck Playable ratings. You just watch interactions between toy ducks made from various materials in a nice summery swimming-pool, whilst "collecting" new ducks that automatically drop into the pool every now and then. You can give them names, there is DLC that adds more ducks and more pools, and it is bizarrely compelling considering that, aside from simple camera-controls and clicking to make the ducks quack or squeak or make other sounds, it's an entirely passive experience.

The game is currently celebrating its first anniversary and there are three new birthday-themed ducks to collect for a short time right now, and one of them looks like a cake with a candle on it. It has just inadvertently set several of my other ducks (ones made of paper, wood, and tartan cloth) on fire!

I stumbled across a video about it a couple of weeks ago, and honestly wasn't quite sure what to make of the idea, but then I ended up spending several hours thoroughly engrossed in several different videos showing off the game, and ended up buying it and all of its current DLC in the Steam Summer Sale. I've absolutely fallen in love with it, and it's ended up as the much-wanted successor to a number of virtual pet titles that I used to play on various platforms, like Little Computer People, Dogz, MOPy Fish, and Nintendogs. It's a great little thing to leave running off to one side while you're taking care of other tasks, and I'm quite looking forward to doing that at Christmas, when a set of festive ducks should be available again.

Last edited by Pengling on 6 July 2023 at 5:25 pm UTC

Same here, too many to pick one, but an example that popped into my head is Bulletstorm

I actually tried the demo of that and found it "meh" and tedious but in the demo you didn't have good stuff yet. I didn't buy it for years, then one fine day while bored, I got it in a Steam sale and the real game was hilarious and fun.

Now there's a bit of a reboot (I'd probably call it more of a "rebuild" than a remaster) that extended its life. It worked well last time I tried it, but that was some time ago. This put it in mind again, I'll have to install it.

P.S. "Bulletstorm Full Clip Edition"... gosh, if anyone doesn't have it, it's on for $4 on Steam right now.

Last edited by Grogan on 6 July 2023 at 6:27 pm UTC

Already posted in this topic: What game did you play lately that positively surprised you?

For me it was Days Gone. I hated it at first.. Refunded even. Keyboard+Mouse support in this game is also very bad. Designed for Controllers it feels like. Everything has like multiple presses to do something instead of possibility to bind to different keyboard keys. However somehow I got hooked into the story on my second try. Its very much like every other stupid open world game like Horizon Zero dawn, Tomb Raider games or anyny Ubisoft game with simple crafting and lots of filler side-missions....but the Characters and story started to grow on me and the zombies gave a pretty good challenge in this game as well

Last edited by Xpander on 6 July 2023 at 9:43 pm UTC

I went into Live a Live (remake) expecting an experimental RPG from 1994 to be the kind of game that's very rough around the edges and better known for being experimental than necessarily being all that great. Most RPGs from that era haven't aged all that gracefully, but I can look past that and enjoy them for what they are.

But no, I ended up really impressed by how well this game managed to hold up in 2022 as a genuinely top-notch game. There aren't many RPGs circa 1994 that I can say have particularly engaging combat mechanics, but they managed to put real footsies in here and that felt so good to be able to bait and poke enemy movement. Maybe the remake deserves some credit, but from what I understand they didn't change much more than just enemy turn order, they kept it all mostly faithful to the original.

Hello! For me, it would be Marvel SNAP and Valheim. I went into SNAP thinking it was going to be a boring luck-based card game, but its actually really interesting, fun, and skill-based. As for valheim, I didn't have high expectations but I got it as a gift. Then I learned that is has native Linux support, and is actually an insanely good game! (Very addictive though lol)

Crab Champions, a meme game that was created because of a meme song.

Yet it features one of the most fluid combat systems ever, with 9/10 runs ending too soon but that 10th run will roll so incredibly insane upgrades that you'll get into like 3 or 4 loops (1 loop is 3 biomes of 10 levels each) ending up with like 80% of your slots with legendary upgrades - but you can still be easily defeated so even then you have to stay focused.

It's very fast, quite difficult third person shooter roguelike, so incredibly fun and rewarding, and the progression is also great (you get keys from bosses, and can use the keys to unlock weapons, then epic/legendary upgrades, and all the rewards are earn-by-playing.

Mulitplayer included!

For me it's Dead cells. When i bought it i thought i might put 10-20 hours into it. And i still play it.