Firewatch is a must buy at $2. Great story. The Forest at $2 is great to grab for you and a few friends who like to play survival games and don't mind some gore.
Was in a thread recently where people talk about heavy story games being popular because of Watcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Disco Esylium and Baldurs Gate 3.
I'm going to recommend some fantastic story-rich/story-heavy games that people might have missed during the 2010-2020 era.
Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun Hong Kong: RPG tactics. if you're not familiar with Shadowrun, it's Cyberpunk but with Elves/Trolls, and Dragons as president. Story is dark and fantastic.
West of Loathing and Shadows of Loathing: RPG tactics. Really great and funny writing. One reviewer said they smiled ear to ear during their whole play. I did too.
Danganronpa series and Steins Gate series visual novel territory. Starts really slow but sucks you in. Paradise Killer was my introduction to this world.
Rusty Lake games Puzzly. Rusty Lake Roots storytelling is so good. Don't sleep on Rusty Lake Paradise and Rusty lake Hotel. Those stories are a bit more abstract, as are all the Rusty Lake games.
Firewatch this is the game that made me sit up and pay attention to Walk Simulators. There's a lot of good ones to name, but Firewatch is top tier.
All on sale for a few bucks. All of them will make you think about them while showering and reflecting on life.
I'm going to say swap Shadowrun Hong Kong for Shadowrun Dragonfall.
Hong Kong felt like the weaker of the trilogy.
I FORGOT TO INCLUDE DRAGONFALL! 😭
I love all three.
Wasnt the autumn sale just 2 weeks ago?
The Sexy Brutale is a fun Groundhog Day puzzle game set in a casino where you must sneak around to prevent the staff from murdering the guests. The story seems insignificant but becomes astounding towards the end. It’s currently $5.
Unmetal is a very fun Metal Gear parody that isn’t totally lax with its writing - maintaining just enough serious tone to keep you invested and break your expectations when it uses the storytelling format to throw you for a loop. Currently $4.
Homebody is another Groundhog Day puzzle game, also about preventing your friends from being murdered - but with a very different tone. Creepy at times, and requires a slow unraveling of every one of the mansion’s puzzles. $5
Tyrion Cuthbert is an astoundingly-done indie take on the Ace Attorney format, set in a fantasy universe with its own magical rules. 5 full cases, with some big character moments in the later ones. Currently $10.
Near Death is a short horror game based on surviving arctic chill at an abandoned base at night. It feels much like an indie game version of The Martian, especially when you contact personnel that can give you tips but can’t send a rescue party. Currently $2.
Picked up GTA 4 Complete Edition for $6 so i can relive my middle school xbox 360 days
https://steamdb.info/sales/?min_discount=80&min_rating=80&min_reviews=500
Steam sale items with a 80% discount, 80% rating, and 500 reviews!
Stolen from @Blaze@sopuli.xyz 's autumn sale post
Very useful link! I didn't realize Tormented Souls was so cheap during this sale. I highly recommend this one for anyone who likes the classic Resident Evil games.
Can anyone recommend games similar to Deep Space Cache?
Valve really needs to space the autumn sale better and stop attacking my wallet like this.
😂
Celeste $4.99 -75% - A platformer with 8-way airdashes. I'm sure you've already heard enough about how amazing the base game is, so I just want to take a moment to shoutout the incredible modding scene for more content. My favorites are Spring 2020 Collab, Strawberry Jam, Glyph, Conqueror's Peak, and Into the Jungle.
CrossCode $9.33 -65% (for base game and DLC) - Phenomenal action RPG. Combat is fast and explosive, dungeons are very obviously Zelda inspired but with way more puzzles. Packed with tons and tons and tons of sidequests, many of which put unique twists on the combat system to keep you on your toes. Make sure to grab the epilogue DLC.
Crypt of the Necrodancer $11.21 (bundle with DLC) - Rhythm game/roguelike sounds like the strangest mashup ever. But what's even stranger is just how well it works. It's just a matter of keeping 4/4 time, but forcing a steady pace forces you to think fast and not make any mistakes. Every death is clearly your fault as every enemy is designed to be beatable using only a base dagger without getting hit (and indeed there's a challenge character that forces exactly this), but dealing with swarms is where it gets complicated. I especially recommend trying to speedrun, playing for speed really makes this game adrenaline-fueled as you have to pace yourself judging how much time you can afford to gather items if you want to make sub-15 or sub-10. Danny Baranowsky's soundtrack absolutely delivers. Get both the Amplified and Synchrony DLCs.
Mega Knockdown $7.99 -20% - A turn-based fighting game that's fun for complete beginners to pick up and play, while still offering a lot of depth. Use this to entice your non-fighting game friends in.
Skullgirls $2.49 -90% base game, $14.83 bundle with DLC - Still the best damn fighting game of all time. Almost never not on sale, hell you probably already own this by now and may not even realize it.
Slay the Spire $6.24 -75% - Roguelike deckbuilder, basic idea is that after each combat you get to add a card to your deck, plus collect relics from elites/events/shops/bosses which provide passive effects. There's a ton of depth in trying to assemble the perfect deck one card at a time, resource management gets very complicated balancing what you need in the short-term versus what you want to take to the endgame. Tons and tons of possibilities, you can pretty much expect to never build the same deck twice. Oh, and did I mention there's 20 levels of hard modes once you think you've gotten A0 down? Also has a very powerful mod API with Steam Workshop support, check out Packmaster and Adventurer for my favorite must-plays.
Them's Fightin' Herds $3.99 -80% - Another great fighting game, been waiting a long time for this port to bring us up to a grand total of two good fighting games on Linux. Has a lot of really cool features like a big story mode with overworld exploration, a cute lobby system with cosmetics to collect and treasure chests to fight for, a dynamic music system that reacts to the fight, and even a semi-cooperative dungeon crawler mode. Has crossplay with consoles as well. Full review. Word of warning: Baihe DLC is very busted and banned from tournament play. Long story about how the publisher fired the entire dev team and released her in an unfinished state. If you buy the DLC, just get the other three characters and skip her.
Anything by Zachtronics - A bunch of different engineering puzzle games where you have to write code or build a machine to solve problems. Once you've solved the puzzle, you can see a histogram comparing your solution to everyone else's on a few different metrics, encouraging you to go back and try to optimize it further. I recommend Opus Magnum as the best entry point.
I love how the Winter Sale starts and the entirety of all gamers DDoS the site. The prices are practically the same from the Autumn Sale.
Grabbed Children of the Sun (Reg 14.99, 40% off to 8.99) and A Little to the Left (Reg 14.99, 50% off to 7.49) personally. Both are puzzlers but the former is far darker then the latter.
Had my eye on Children of the Sun a while back. Thanks for the reminder it's on sale, I think I'll pick it up too.
Any sale recommendations for co-op games or remote play together games that are on sale?
For the more chillax remote co-op, these are the games I've played with my family. (Wife and kids)
Valheim - survival building stuff.
Grounded - survival building stuff but it's Honey I shrunk the kids.
Raft - survival building stuff but on a raft.
Dinkum - building stuff like Animal Crossing but Australia
Enshrouded - survival building stuff but Zelda Breath of the Wild
V Rising - building stuff but vampires and MOBA
Bone's Cafe is a slower non roguelite cafe game were you get to kill and cook your customers. It has been lots of fun.
Kingdom 2 Crowns is a great little game of frustration but it's only 2 people but it's pretty and the soundtrack slaps and it's a fun settlement building and protection game.
Everyone is already recommending Hazelight Studio games but I will jump on that too cause they are amazing.
And just to shake things up:
The Lego games. They are classic and usually a good time. Campy humor. Murder your friends. And they are pretty cheap as the whole collections these days.
Edit: Oh and Ship of Fools was fun. Simple crowded bullet hell slapstick roguelite on a tiny ship with guns.
Bone's Cafe and Kingdom 2 Crowns is right up my alley! Thank you
Make sure to read the Tips in Bones Cafe if you pick it up. It felt like a lot of things clicked after that and it made my murders a little cleaner for the health inspector!
No tips for Kingdom 2 Crowns, really just hope you enjoy it. I sunk so many hours into that with others.
Rotwood is a good one. Co-op Roguelite beat-em-up from the Don't Starve guys.
Lethal Company is just lots of fun, we've gotten too much time out of that dumb game. Maybe check out Content Warning if you like LC but want a change.
Outward is a fantastic old-school RPG for two people, has all the traits of a game from 2002
Palworld - haven't hopped back into this one since its launch but have been meaning to. But this type of game is definitely not underrepresented on the market.
Escape Simulator is a nice stress-free co-op escape room game, lots of official content and also has Steam Workshop so there's tons of great content.
PlateUp! if you're not worried about getting into a fight over how awful your buddy is at making food
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos is a Zelda-like RPG that's a surprising amount of fun for how simple the game first looks.
Other bigname recs: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Baldur's Gate 3, Sea of Thieves, Deep Rock Galactic, Stardew Valley
Outward is definitely not for everyone, but it felt to me like playing Morrowind for the first time. Not in the dialogue or character writing but in terms of looking at a weird thing on the horizon and asking myself 'WTF IS THAT'.
My wife and I bounced after the brutal difficulty and made it to the next biome.
It was kind of fun that every fight was a life or death experience. But we never felt like we were getting stronger or things ever got easier.
I didn't mind, as I play Dark Souls. But for my wife who like to max-level then steamroll things, this was driving her crazy.
Yeah the only progression is in terms of gear really. There are some skills you can buy but they don't seem to matter as much as a good weapon or shield.
My wife and I loved Escape Academy. The narrative structure made it more interesting. And the puzzles were more sillier in nature, like solving things while escaping a flood. Or trying to land a airplane.
We bounced off of Escape Simulato.
Full Metal Furies is a very fun “beatemup-style” game very much focused on unique character abilities and cooperation. The writing is very funny, and each character operates very different. Currently $5.
Oh, and on the topic of coop games with primarily female casts: Assault Android Cactus is a lot of fun even for people who haven’t played games much. Rather than use a teammate reviving mechanic, players can pick themselves up - but everyone is fighting their timer to complete the mission before their batteries run out. Levels are quick and chaotic. $5.
Brotato is always a recommendation. Single player or co-op doesn't matter. Both modi are great
I enjoyed "It Takes Two" quite a bit. "A Way Out" is another co-op game from the same publisher that I've only heard good things about.
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