i am looking out there for the nichest gaming experiences (because it seems my computers performance is directly proportional to how little people have played the game im playing) so discuss and discover from other users some underrated digital experiences (that will hopefully be light on the cpu)

  • Azarova [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    15·
    17 days ago

    Half Earth Socialism is a pretty short and niche experience. Based on the book of the same about what is needed to be done to avert the worst of the climate crisis, the game places you in the role of the economic planner for the whole planet following a global revolution in 2020. You have to pass policies, develop new technologies, and reorganize how humanity carries out production while also trying to balance the opinions of various political factions that each have their own approach to the climate crisis, as well as the happiness of humanity at large. It’s free on steam, not resource intensive at all, and runs just fine on Linux

  • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    11·
    17 days ago

    Maybe not niche but I’m gonna shout out Liero which I played the absolute fucking shit out of as a kid. Outside of my friend group growing up I have never met anyone who has heard of this game.

    Received my first handjob playing this game which is exactly the kind of goofy teenager story you’d expect it to be.

  • HuntressHimbo@lemmy.zipEnglish
    9·
    17 days ago

    I am a big fan of Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim. It’s a city builder/real-time strategy with some specific limits to how you interact. You choose what guilds and building to set up, where you place them, and when you recruit new heroes or research things, but you can’t directly control what your heroes do and how they carry out each quest

    • Keld [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      3·
      17 days ago

      I played that briefly, but I remember being annoyed because the mechanic of having to offer bounties for enemies was pretty janky.

      • HuntressHimbo@lemmy.zipEnglish
        3·
        17 days ago

        They definitely can be. Lots of the time I don’t use the flags and rely on placement and innate hero behavior to manage

      • HuntressHimbo@lemmy.zipEnglish
        2·
        16 days ago

        “Oooo pretty star…”

        For OP again, the whole soundscape of this game is so cozy. Every building and unit makes a noise when you select it, and every hero has lines they play locally based on their activities and global lines for major events like their deaths. It makes the map feel so lively

  • zongor [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    8·
    17 days ago

    Niche games / wack games list:

    • Lenny Loosejocks in Space - old school adventure/puzzle game but with more jokes, originally a flash game they did a rerelease recently
    • Art SQOOL - I guess a painting game where you get rated by a pre LLM style AI also there’s 3D platforming and collect-a-thon gameplay
    • Cargo the quest for gravity - what if “Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts” was made in the eastern block
    • A slower speed of light - more of a teaching tool than a game per se, it’s a very interesting experience
    • Egg by Terry Cavanagh - of VVVVVV fame, it’s a 3d puzzle platformer that goes places
    • Frog fractions - a game about learning fractions
    • Every day the same dream - very short game but good
    • APPLECALYPSE - what if ricochet was about post apocalyptic apples that kill your neighbors and was weird as hell
  • Ildsaye [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    7·
    17 days ago

    In the 90s there used to be these multimedia CDs you could get at techie swap meets. They were kind of like interactive virtual art galleries, often distributed in small, zine-scale batches by some solo creator or other. Some of the things on these CDs qualified as games of a sort. Nobody talks about them anymore and I sometimes wonder if I dreamed it all.

  • lurker_supreme [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    7·
    17 days ago

    Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. It is a Rogue-like. It is called that, because it is like Rogue. None of that permanent progression or choose three hogwash. Here are some fun features:

    -Grope around randonly generated dungeons, get beaten to a pulp by rodents, and worship strange gods.

    -Find randomly generated and unique treasures. You see here the amulet Cumfuqz {-11 INT, *Tele, *Rage}. Are you gonna pick it up or not you fucking loser?

    -Learn an assortment of badass spells and die before you can ever possibly cast them. You want to cast a level 9 spell? How about you finish 90% of the game first you impatient little bastard?

    -Perish in bizarre and unique circumstances, sometimes beyond your control!

    YOU WILL lose at the very end of the game after having played 20 hours, and YOU WILL cry. But that’s okay, you can just start another character and try again.

    https://crawl.develz.org/

    • Moomoo_Milk [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      5·
      16 days ago

      Nothing warms my heart more than seeing the old definition of roguelike used.

      I have played a little of DC:SS, but not enough to know how to win. I should go back to it someday.

    • PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      4·
      16 days ago

      I fucking love this game. Have been away for years now but it’s the one I was going to recommend in the thread and probably the single game I have sunk more time into than any other.

      Aside from the game itself, some of the design principles specifically make it great. For one, strong emphasis on making player choices count. It is not “fun” to be repeatedly asked to make a decision that only realistically has one strong option. There have to be real decisions to make with real consequences or it isn’t a choice, it’s an annoying speed bump. Too much to say on that topic, honestly, but even choices made haphazardly about what to do each turn can and will quickly end runs (even in late game).

      They also work to find and remove parts of the game where difficulty is shaped by players’ willingness to endure tedium. Because high difficulty in a game can reward grinding and more esoteric strategies of dealing with constraints (e.g. equipment weight or character hunger), they feel it’s important to rework game mechanics away from those that reward players for doing very tedious stuff. That hasn’t always been popular, because it sometimes results in big changes, but the folks who complain about such are, of course, simply wrong and may fight me 😌

      The combined result of the complexity, difficulty, and opinionated design philosophy is really unique and rewarding. Just on one dimension alone, it’s hard to name other games with more impactful and varied options for character race / class / god, and the replayability from those alone is crazy.

      But it even manages to implicitly defeat aggravating repeated traps of whole gaming genres, like consumable hoarding in RPGs. Not a thing here, you fucking die and end your run if you don’t use your consumables, and you often have to use ones that you’re only guessing at their effect, a la “please be a scroll of blink to let me move outta this swarm and NOT the scroll that makes all these popcorn monsters surrounding me explode upon death! Crap crap crap it was the spicy one, this is much worse, reading another and thank fuck this one WAS blink seeeee yaaaa. I don’t even care that I used both, I can’t believe I’m alive”.

      It honestly gets to feeling intense and exciting despite being turn based! You can always stop and think, but yet the escalating “action” convinces you otherwise. I have often ended my run (died) in a frantic, adrenaline-fueled flurry of sloppy turns, scenarios I could’ve survived if I’d stopped and thought, but the game got up in my head and made me choke.

      And the wins? And the even rarer moments when you have accumulated the needed knowledge and wisdom, executed on it, and you not only win but truly dominate? When you alone hold mortal sway over the whole dungeon and infinite realms of abyssal chaos?! Appropriately, you feel like a fucking god, like a walking cataclysm of “do not fuck with me”.

      Game is so, so good.

  • bobs_guns@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    6·
    17 days ago

    My dad used to play Robotron at the arcade until his fingers bleed. I tried it on MAME before my transition and I couldn’t get into it. maybe it’s worth another try now that I have my shit together a bit more

  • Commie_Chameleon [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    6·
    17 days ago

    -Soul of Sovereignty: Visual novel about a tired divorced dad who becomes the disciple of a very normal hot woman trying to become God. Excellent writing, visuals, and music. Only 3 chapters out but is being actively developed by GGDigi, who assisted/assists with Undertale and Deltarune. Toby Fox has done songs for the soundtrack. Still niche in my mind because despite all that I’ve never run into anyone that’s heard of it.

    -Viscera Cleanup Detail: Granddaddy of all cleanup games. You mop up after the kinds of massacres you commit in doom and half life. Crime Scene Cleaner is the only modern game that can carry the torch in my mind. (CW for picture: gore)

    -Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles My Life as King: talked about it before on the bear but it’s so good. WiiWare exclusive city planner.

    -Glass Masquerade: Chill puzzle game where you put together pieces of pretty stained glass art. There are 4 now with dlc and all are very cheap.

  • warped_fungus [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    6·
    17 days ago

    Maybe not super niche, but I loved playing Hypnospace Outlaw. You play as a moderator on a 90’s style computer and internet service that people use via a headband in their sleep. As you look through all the personal websites and report copyright infringemets, bullying, etc., over time, you see the users responding to your actions, find new music genres, news, all very quirky and nostalgic. You get to download music and widgets and such too. All until something happens, and you end up more like a detective to get to the truth of it. The aesthetic and charm is off the charts.

  • ryepunk [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    5·
    17 days ago

    Creeper world series I guess? It’s like you’re in an aggressive tower defense where the creeper (hegemonizing swarm or smatter if you like) always expanding and growing and you have to try and manage through the missions. There’s been 4 of them plus 2 spin offs that are similar but slightly different.

  • Beaver [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    5·
    16 days ago

    I played a lot of Tread Marks, an arena tank combat game with fully destructible terrain. The capture the flag mode was super intense, and there was a decent online and modding scene for awhile. The highlight are the levels, which are incredibly varied and creative outdoor environments, some of them extremely psychedelic. It’s open source now and has bots, so there’s nothing stopping you from trying it out.

  • Keld [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    5·
    17 days ago

    A simulation game where you have to do genetics counselling including doing the experiments and picking the right dialogue options when talking to potential parents about their genetic risks and chances of conception.

    As for stuff you would want to play: Luftrauser is pretty fun and I dont think I ever heard anyone else talk about it.

  • Acute_Engles [he/him, any]@hexbear.netMEnglish
    5·
    17 days ago

    I played a game called “bob’s game” that was a collection of really fun mini game style games and it allowed local 2 player. One day the game was replaced with “ok” all the assets on the steam page were some guy’s face and it wouldn’t run anymore.

    Apparently the developer tried to remove it from steam and was unable to so they just nuked it as best they could

    • lelkins@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      2·
      16 days ago

      isn’t this the game with the really fucking weird development story and it used to be an rpg thing