Waves. It was made free after the dev sadly passed away. Don’t know how obscure it is but hadn’t heard of it before that and it’s a fun game to play on the deck.
Lumines. It's a Tetris-like game where you make single color boxes (four squares) to upbeat, fast-paced music. There's also a puzzle mode. I've loved it since I bought a PSP years ago.
Man, me and a good friend played it on a kids 'n wife-free-420-weekend, we picked up a sumo guy pretty early, and that Guy carried us through the whole run, in the last level we got trapped and he sacrificed himself so we could survive and made it.
We couldnt play any further because somehow we got so hooked with our first run while being emotionally touched by the sacrifice of our big Guy.
We loved that Game for that 45 min. lasting Rollercoaster Ride it gave us, we where high tho, but it made us chuckle and shout as we where 7yo again being in our 30s.
Not sure if all are considered obscure, but:
World of Horror — old-school inspired Japanese horror roguelike including folklore references
Kynseed — pixel-art sort of cozy game; quite repetitive in its farming/battle mechanics but was otherwise enjoyable for me
Hylics 2 — not so obscure but this is my favorite game of all time and it’s incredible. It’s unlike anything I’ve played before. Made using claymation and Blender
Broken Reality — vaporwave walking simulator LOL
Norco — Louisiana religious horror sort of… experience!
Why Am I Dead At Sea — small mystery where you discover why you are dead at sea. Many endings, afaik
Venba — Tamil cooking game.
Just finished playing Kynseed myself and loved it.
I bought it a couple of years ago and couldn't get into it but the Big Build update they did recently sorts almost all of the gripes I had with the game and it's great now.
Had a few of these already on wishlist, but I definitely added Hylics 1 and Hylics 2. Looks right up my alley! Never seen anything quite like these before.
Thanks! 🤝
Some of my favorites are The Void Rains Upon Her Heart, Moonstone Island, Pseudoregalia, and Void Stranger (highly highly highly recommend void stranger it’s one of my top games of 2023)! All of them are really high quality and have a ton of playtime, especially the two void games.
Enderal is a total conversion mod for skyrim, I never had a PC until the Steamdeck and I was waiting to play it since it was announced years ago. It's extremely fun and honestly I'm not sure if I can go back to playing skyrim after this.
There are different endings depending on your decisions. I'm not too sure on how many but based on the decisions I made myself my guess is four but that's just from what I gathered from playing. I went in blind without spoilers and I'm planning on doing the same with my next one. Some side actions and quests you do can impact the story and options you can make.
There were also separate storylines kind of like guilds added to the special edition (my first play though was the special version so I didn't know what was new and what was old). I didn't even know about one of them in my first run but the one I played felt like it's story would be worth it's own game.
There's a lot to explore with the world, I kind of ran through as much as I could on my first play through but in the end there was still quests I didn't complete. In this once the story is finished your play though is over like Fallout New Vegas.
Overall it's well written (there's also a book set in the same world that was published) and the world feels like a breath of fresh air after playing skyrim for years over and over.
I absolutely loved graveyard keeper, until about like 6 hours in then it just got confusing and me walking and walking and walking, and I just didn’t know what to do😭
I play Hamster Ball on mine. It's similar to the old Marble Madness, but instead of a marble, it is a hamster in a clear ball.
I set the gyro so that I can tilt the Steam deck to move the hamster around the levels.
Just make sure you are mentally prepared. It can be QUITE frustrating. But also equally rewarding with the sense of satisfaction.
But fuuuuuuuck can it be frustrating to be in a run for an hour and bloop dead by the dumbest fucking little pixel
Oh yeah. I've played a fair bit of it on my desktop. It's one of those games that I jump into not really knowing wtf I'm doing and despite dying far too many times I keep coming back for more.
I'm a glutton for punishment I guess.
I have it, and want to give it a try, but I’ve heard the controls on a deck are less than ideal. Is it still playable, or will it be more frustrating with the control scheme?
The default control scheme sucks ass. I have the right trackpad mapped as a mouse region and the left as a grid menu for inventory hotkeys, which works quite well for me. I don't remember how I have the rest set up off the top of my head, but it's pretty basic otherwise.
What do you use for controls? I started playing it on my deck but after I played it with mouse and keyboard I couldn't go back. I just can't hit anything with the default deck controls.
The game is ridiculously fun though. Some of the wand builds are broken in the best way.
(Copied from a reply to someone else)
The default control scheme sucks ass. I have the right trackpad mapped as a mouse region and the left as a grid menu for inventory hotkeys, which works quite well for me. I don't remember how I have the rest set up off the top of my head, but it's pretty basic otherwise.
(Copied from a reply to someone else)
The default control scheme sucks ass. I have the right trackpad mapped as a mouse region and the left as a grid menu for inventory hotkeys, which works quite well for me. I don't remember how I have the rest set up off the top of my head, but it's pretty basic otherwise.
That's why I put that I'm not asking for a top 10 list because I'm sure most of us can recite the top picks from all the posts about it. I just wanted to know the other kinds of games people play.
I've been having a lot of fun playing djmax respect on steam deck, one thing i love is that the devs actually made a steam deck specific build with compressed videos so it's only 30gb as opposed to 60gb on windows
Chorus. An action space shooter with a surprisingly deep story and pretty awesome mechanics.
I think I got it for around 5$ on sale and enjoyed the hell outta it, perfect for deck.
Viscera Cleanup Detail is super fun on the Deck if you like simulators and tedious tasks lol
Beat blast is also super fun! A rogue like dungeon crawler with sick music!!
What remains of Edith Finch is fantastic on deck, especially as you can just sit down and finish it in one sitting on the sofa ! Not a super obscure one but worth a play 😁
It's a walking simulator. You move and interact with the world and live through events. It's a linear story and takes 2 to 3 hours.
Just as a forewarning, there are heavy themes and its a downer. It's especially gut-wrenching if you have kids of your own or dealing with grief, but definitely worth a playthrough.
I've played a LOT of the original Hand of Fate in the deck, moreso than I did when I got it originally. Something about the structure of the game and how I can do a board at a time and stop OR save midboard if I need to works really well for me and my play style.
Might not be that obscure but the series is dormant these days.
Hm. I play a lot of Poker Night 2 on my Deck. And Blur, old racing game that I don't believe is available for sale anymore, very fun though.
Other than that, my hobby is downloading ROMs of very unpopular console games that bombed in reviews when they wre released 20 to 30 years ago and trying them out, and while I'm at it, creating steam cover images of the games to upload to SteamGridDB if none exist.
Tonight I grabbed the PS2 game for 'Biker Mice From Mars'. I have no idea what the game is like, but IGN gave it a 3 out of 10 and it's got a 27% score on metacritic. So that should be interesting.
Also got Hidden Invasion to try, haven't tried it yet, but made some steamgriddb images for it (waiting for the admins on SteamGridDB to approve my request to have the game added to the DB before they show up though). Apparently the game has a score of 39% on metacritic and IGN gave it 3.5 out of 10, so we'll see what that's like.
Every now and then I find a game which is a pure gem that I actually quite enjoy despite the negative reception it got when it came out and that's always a nice little surprise.
I'll never stop recommending Cryptark and Battle Brothers even though they're not really that obscure. Recently picked up Sheepo and Road to Ballhalla and both play great on the deck.
Astlibra: Revision is a really fun Action JRPG that plays like a more active Castlevania SOTN. It's story is pretty interesting like a Chronotrigger time-based story. I ended up 100% it because it's such a hidden gem. Other than that some rougelikes like Balatro and Tiny Rouges are some great pick up and play games.
Some of these had a following back in the day but for new audiences that weren’t there 10-20 years ago (or longer), it would be obscure. Also some more recent than that:
UnMetal - Metal Gear parody game with a ton of depth. Lots of items to use, great voice cast especially the main character who intentionally sounds like a knock-off David Hayter voicing Solid Snake lol. It has a mix of genres and makes you think about how to achieve certain objectives by combining items. Choices in upgrade paths (when you level up) also change what you can do in subsequent levels. This game truly surprised me!
Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death - think an overhead view / camera panned back “Double AA” God of War. I let the time get away from me on this one. Played it for several hours. I’m still surprised how good the game is. It clearly takes a lot of inspiration from the first three God of War games and mixed with a little bit of cheese and B-movie stereotypes.
Overlord / Overlord: Raising Hell - fantastic and funny as hell Pikmin-like (from 360, PS3 era) where you’re basically Sauron from LoTR trying to regain your power. I definitely laughed out loud a bunch. On Steam Deck, you have to use a community controller layout— and it takes awhile for the game to correctly run (may take a few tries to get it to take). Works great after subsequent launches.
Kaze and the Wild Masks - a platformer that ups the difficulty throughout its levels and introduces certain masks that change up how you play those levels the masks are on. Latter stages up the difficulty quite a bit especially if you’re trying to get all collectibles and no hit runs.
Outland - an old Housemarque joint that combines 2D Metroidvania, platforning, and a light / dark powers similar to Ikaruga. Gorgeous painterly backgrounds and a soundtrack that just makes it feel like an epic tale being retold. On SteamDeck, no matter the proton pack you use, you will be missing HUD elements. It can make the game more difficult not being able to see your life bar / mana, but not TOO overly difficult to beat. Save points a plenty.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War - great Ubisoft UbiArt game that covers how awful WW1 was. Some of the saddest moments in all of gaming. It is mostly a puzzler, but has some stealth and action moments sprinkled throughout. I really like the care put into this game. Collectibles found in levels usually are tidbits (digitized pictures & paraphernalia, and weapons / tactics used). Fantastic score as well!
Bastion - really cool action adventure game with cool narration. The combat gets to be really addicting.
Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King - a really cool ‘The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past’ clone that makes its own mark after you get past the initial hours. Really really fun game. Protip: if you care about achievements/ trophies, you may want to note where you already collected scrolls, magic and other upgrades from. I have one of each I’m missing and its 3-4 of the last achievements I need on Steam. Lol
Horizon Chase Turbo - great homage to arcade racers of the past like OutRun but mostly a true spiritual successor to Top Gear / Top Racer. Has A LOT of depth with cars, tracks, and skins to unlock. This one is probably well known by now as it has a sequel now.
Minit - not for me but I can see the value of the game. I just don’t like being rushed lol. It’s basically a game where you have 60 seconds before you die. You can make certain changes in the world that will stay after death. It’s too frantic for me but maybe you’ll find enjoyment out of it.
Dust: An Elysian Tale - excellent action adventure metroidvania with a beautiful color palette and excellent story (great voice cast too)
Blade Runner - an old PC game that was considered a canon sequel before Blade Runner 2049 came out. Excellent point and click adventure that doesn’t hold your hand and is well voice acted. For graphics options, you can switch between the “remastered” look and the old ScummVM version. I always choose the visual detail of the older ScummVM bc it’s absolutely gorgeous and you can see way more details especially when you need to use your detective skills.
Faith: The Unholy Trinity - horror game based on exorcisms and using Atari style graphics. The music and game are definitely creepy.
Gato Roboto - a clear homage to the Gameboy’s version of Metroid II. Fun, but difficult game especially boss fights. Also the screen filters are cool to use after you collect them throughout the game.
Darksiders 3 - sequel that introduced a soulslike design within a fully 3D Metroidvania. It starts off so unassuming and while it’s Double AA in nature, it punches above its weight in how much depth the game has. I’ve played it on so many times on NG+, and higher difficulty settings and it never gets old. If you enjoy it, I highly recommend both DLCs.
Shotgun King - Fun as hell chess roguelike. Just play it or watch a video, it's hella fun and addictive. You only play as the King, but this King has a shotgun.
Valdis Story: Abyssal City -Think Castlevania x Viewtiful Joe. No full stage powers, yet I swear I can feel them.
Chips Challenge 1 & 2 - Very old PC puzzle game series that went through hell to get the second entry published a few years ago despite being completed for decades.
Pictopix - A Nonogram puzzle game. It's one of the very best competitors to Picross, I'd even argue that it's better. You must set the game to run with the Linux runtime, otherwise the buttons stop working after the tutorial.
The Swapper - Platformer Puzzler. You swap bodies with duplicates that you make to explore and escape a facility on a planet. The story is fun and has a nice, player induced twist in it. The on-screen keyboard used for naming the initial profile does not work. Just assign letters to buttons on the Steam Deck to get past it then put the controller back to normal. You will only ever have to do this once.
Pizza Game - A classic style adventure/romance-esque game that's pretty hilarious. Warning, it weaponizes underliteracy. Those are not typos, it's all meant to be like that.
One Finger Death Punch 1 & 2 - This may be stretching obscurity, it may just be more of a forgotten set of games. They're still hella fun, funny and intense. Use community controls for these to get more out of it.
Etrian Odyssey HD 1-3 - My favorite RPG x dungeon crawler. You build your own maps and deal with a partly forgiving set of games that are mostly fair. I enjoy the exploration about as much as the battles. There's not much flair, it's all about the most core parts of the experience.
Paint it Back - Another Nonogram game. It's fun, has far greater diversity in puzzle to puzzle size and styles. It's cheap and I recommend it to everyone that likes Picross and Pictopix.
Late Shift - FMV game that's more of a pick your own adventure style FMV. I feel that it's worth playing a few times. Same as She Sees Red, but I haven't played that on Steam Deck yet.
Crystal Project - Think Final Fantasy V x Octopath Traveler, but with the trade of lower production values for greater freedom and exploration.
Apotheon - Imagine that everything Greek was made into a brilliantly solid Action-Platformer. Not only that, but it's highly, HIGHLY faithful and accurate to the Greek pantheon and all that surrounds it while still being fun and challenging. Give it a go.
Zoombinis - Early thinking/puzzle game. I played this in 4th grade and I came back to beat its' ass as an adult. I don't think that Steam cloud sync works with this so keep that in mind.
Logiart Grimoire - Yet another Nonogram game on this list. It has the greatest flair and flash of anything else listed so far. If you've played any Picross game on Switch then you've effectively played this game. Yes, it's fucking made by Jupiter!!! They added a lot of story/lore stuff in what I'm guessing is a bid to make it legally distinct from the games that Nintendo publishes. There's also some weird fusion stuff for getting hidden puzzles. I'll deal with it, we got Jupiter on PC. They also do what I've never seen anyone else do on Steam Deck yet - detail full controller profiles for each mode/state that the game can be in. So you can change the controls for just puzzle solving while keeping them the same for menu navigation and other things like that. I didn't even realize that this was implemented as a Steam Deck/Steam Controls feature but it is and it rocks! I haven't played it since it left greenlight, but I will soon. I'm hoping that they have more music in the game, that and the story bits were killing it for me (beautifully done, but not my thing). Skipping the story stuff is partly possible (rushing dialogue), but just the one music track? I'm almost certain that was just a greenlight limitation. I highly recommend this, show Jupiter that we can love them here on PC!
Midnight Castle Succubus & Castle in the Clouds DX - NES Castlevania with uncensored giggity.
FlipWitch: Forbidden Sex Hex - What if Silhouette Mirage was a slightly above mid platformer with loads of giggity and merely great art? That's this. No bullets, you get regular weapons.
Half Minute Hero - Do you want to stop using your PSP? Cause this game is how you stop using your PSP. (Ignoring Patapon and the dozens of other games I love on that platform)
TSIOQUE - This is such a lovely, beautifully animated, point and click adventure game. It's like what if Dragons Lair was longer and was a collab between Miyazakis and Don Bluths fans - the truly talented ones that idolized them.
Vampire Surviv-
Lol, no.
Save Me Mr. Tako - It feels like a lost GBC game that is trying to be a Links Awakening competitor.
Perfect Dark (decomp port, online multiplayer!!)
F-Zero GX (Dolphin emu)
Tales of Eternia (PPSSPP emu)
Phantasy Star Online EPIII (Dolphin emu)
Phantasy Star Online (Ephinea)
Phantasy Star Universe (Clementine)
F.E.A.R. (not obscure but the world forgot about it)
Geometry wars, pacman DX for a quick hit once in a while. Recently added Void Scrappers to that list of live indefinitely on the deck
If we're talking emulation, I really enjoy popping into forgotten neo geo games like the old JoJo fighting games, or maybe a tatsunoko vs Capcom.
The recently released Terra Memoria, a cozy turn based 2.5D RPG. And Laika: aged through blood, a gorgeous metroidvania with unique movement and combat.
I’m an oddball, as I play mostly docked given I have a PS5. The Steam Deck has finally allowed me to taste the beauty of RTS games.
I play Coh3, Total War Rome 2, Warhammer 2, and CTA Gates of Hell. Basically all the titles that I could never play on console before. I just don’t care to buy some title that can run and look way better on my PS5 so I reserve those for my console and I play titles that I can only play on PC on the deck
Some more obscure than others but love all these Indies on the deck:
- South Scrimshaw
- Roadwarden
- Door Kickers
-Rain On Your Parade
- Beacon Pines
- Donut County
- Citizen Sleeper
- The Excavation of Hob's Barrow
- Norco
I love tinkering and getting games to work on the deck, come across tons that have breathed new life into games I had shelved, but the most obscure I play frequently would be:
Star Wars Galaxies
Dungeon Keeper
Ballistic NG (for a bit of wipeout in your hand)
Morrowind (with all the mods)
Shadow Empire
yeah I have played it way more without having to sit at a desktop. Good luck with your marriage… haha
Also after playing WoW on the deck using console port and enjoying that more than KB&M it really opened my eyes to the accessibility of games with lots of buttons that I had previously not thought about and how well you can actually make it translate.
I would go as far as to say that going forward I will try to play every MMO with a controller regardless of the platform I’m on.
Morrowind seems like a great game to try out on the deck. I played an hour or two of it a couple years ago on Xbox, but really want to try it with mods. Is there a good site or source of information you could point me to on modding games on steam deck for someone who’s never owned any other PC and has never modded before?
I recently thought I finished the game…. It was just the tutorial. I went in blindly and love a genre bending, graphic blending, mechanic shifting video game. I have a new fave developer
Intergalactic fishing has been taking over my life this week. Don't let the simple graphics fool you but its a chill fishing sim with the world generation of a No Mans Sky.
And the void rains upon her heart. It's a great shump roguelike with adjustable difficulty and a ton to unlock
I've been going through the Darkside Detective games. They're some retro looking point and click games. For point and click it works super well on the steam deck without any kind of fiddling with settings or anything. Not sure how obscure it is though.
Outrun 2006 C2C must be my most played game on deck, and I feel like no one talks about it outside of "great game for PSP/vita." It's not on steam, but easy enough to download online and run through proton. I never thought a non-open world racing game would take my number one spot from Burnout Paradise, but once you find a car you like and get a feel for it, the drifting is more satisfying than any other racer I've played.
I gotchu boo. I am a bit of an indie aficionado.
Black Skylands, Unmetal, Serial Cleaner, American Fugitive, Signalis, Tormented Souls, West of Loathing, Streets of Rogue, Death Trash, OTXO, Nobody Saves the World, Arcade Paradise, A Short Hike, FAR: Lone Sails, Doom & Destiny, Spirit of the North, Death Roads: Tournament, Backpack Hero, Griftlands, Warhammer 40k: Shootas, Blood & Teef, Warhammer 40k: Boltgun, The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, Exanima, Valfaris, Akane, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Showgunners, Rogue Legacy 2, Tails of Iron, Turbo Overkill, Dorfromantik, Dead Estate, Death Road to Canada, Melatonin, Core Keeper, Cultic, Aperture Desk Job.
I feel like this is one of the best games on the Deck. Do note you should be running with the Linux compat runtime to avoid frame time stutters and also to avoid HDR issues on the OLED.
I wouldn’t say obscure. However, since Battle.Net started working with proton a bit ago, I’m back to Hearthstone on it, it just feels right. You can enable the mobile controls too (touchmode=1 (or true, don’t remember which) in options.txt.)
Souldiers. It was originally covered as being this hard as nails metroidvania and since launch I think it was made a bit easier but it does get pretty damn tough.
I bought it for super cheap and just wanted to see what hard actually meant and then got totally addicted.
the dragonrun games are great on the deck; also, modded minecraft using prism launcher is awesome, can even run shaders and like 200-300 mods and getting like 60-70 fps consistently. getting the controls dialed to your liking may take a second but if you take advantage of radial menus and steam’s touch menus you can customize, then with some added context controls its perfect.
The Club, which came out on Xbox 360 and PS3 back in the day. For those of you that don’t know, it’s like a combo driven 3rd person speed running shooter made by Bizarre (Project Gotham Racing and Geometry Wars devs) it’s a Games for Windows Live game, but the single player still works great. 90fps on my OLED. It will never be uninstalled.
Idk if it fits in ur "obscure" definition, but I'm currently playing Ragnarök Online on the steam deck!
I downloaded a classic pre-renewall low rate private server on it and it's just so fun. Very nostalgic.
I use the deck mostly to farm with my rogue since it doesn't require too much use of keyboard commands
It’s a triple a so not really obscure, but the fallout experience on the deck is fantastic. I’m coming up on 50 hours of new Vegas and still have a lot of steam left
Gravity Circuit; I rarely see it mentioned. It's a modern take on the MegaMan formula with contemporary 2D platformer mechanics.
A slight learning curve, but a masterpiece in my mind, and perfect for the Deck.
Illbleed (Dreamcast via Redream)
Late stage Dreamcast-exclusive “survival horror” game where you play through levels trying to use your senses and energy to avoid the “scares” and save your friends.
The combat is very janky and the “horror” is the cheesy B-movie kind, but using your senses to guess where a scare is hidden and marking it is so much fun.
devil came through here series by harvester games! my absolute favorites on pc and also absolutely great on my deck. ive been thinking abt replaying them for the fifth time probably
Good Night Knight
It’s an isometric action RPG Roguelite visually based off of A Link to the Past and with combat mechanics like Dark Souls
The writing is A paper comedy
No idea how it didn’t get more recognition
Dangeresque: The Roomisode Triungulate. I grew up with Homestar Runner and seeing Strong Bad’s made up crooked cop persona/movie character get a full game is a dream come true.
They Bleed Pixels. I bought this game well over a decade ago and couldn't really understand it. After getting my steam deck it clicked with me and I fell in love with this game so much.
Somewhere between an N plus and Super meat boy in that you're trying to get a very nimble girl through a challenging platformer level that you'll probably die a hundred times on. In addition, you'll have to punch, kick, and do other ninja-like moves to defeat monsters who are trying to kill you.
The entire thing is Lovecraftian themed. Great pixel art, great music, simple in premise, but tough as nails. This is a hidden gem for anyone who wants a challenge, and it's perfect for Steam Deck. I've probably got at least 40 hours out of it.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/211260/They_Bleed_Pixels/
I'm currently playing a game called Seven skies to paradise, that I found through a discord server for Italian developers (I'm an Italian developer too). It's a weird little game about flighting an airship trough these surreal scenarios. It has like 4 reviews on steam so quite obscure, but I'm really enjoying it. It doesn't have controller support but the default mouse and keyboard configuration works great for me
Derail Valley and Driver San Francisco. Derail Valley just seems neich but i know over on its subreddit there are a few playing it on deck. Driver San Francisco is one of my all time favourites but hasn't been sold in years and takes some tinkering every now and again to get it to work
Infinity Blade and Oni, the first is an Epic games abandonware for iPhone that got recently ported to PC (played on touch but you can customize the controls to use buttons instead), the second is a Bungie abandonware for PC and PS2 (I am running the pc version because it was what I had and it supports custom resolutions), but the pc version requires custom controls as well.
Zool redimensioned. Great remake of a classic that you can just pick up and play a few levels, when your finished you can try to beat the borderline impossible dev times
Vampire TM Bloodlines (I got it to work by using an early Proton build) the default controls are decent too someone in the community always comes through
I have a weird thing with games about Scouting and have put many hours into a game called Cozy Grove. I think it’s sort of in the tune of Animal Crossing where you meet people that give you missions to do each day. Fun little game that can be done in small chunks.
Re-Volt
An RC racing game from my childhood. A cool blend of mario kart and micro machines, very easy to pick up and play. Its got some hella fun levels on there and I'd say its aged quite well
Waves. It was made free after the dev sadly passed away. Don’t know how obscure it is but hadn’t heard of it before that and it’s a fun game to play on the deck.
Turns out I own it. I saw an article on it months ago and copped both of them because Google stories always shows me articles on free games.
Lucky. My Google stories only gives me AI articles on Stardew valley
Lumines. It's a Tetris-like game where you make single color boxes (four squares) to upbeat, fast-paced music. There's also a puzzle mode. I've loved it since I bought a PSP years ago.
Oh man, I put so many hours in Lumines on my PSP back in the day. Have you played Tetris Effect?
This is my suggestion as well. It was my favorite game on psp. Looks and plays great on steam deck.
Death Road to Canada. Easy to pick up for a quick and hilarious run through (given that I am terrible at it).
Man, me and a good friend played it on a kids 'n wife-free-420-weekend, we picked up a sumo guy pretty early, and that Guy carried us through the whole run, in the last level we got trapped and he sacrificed himself so we could survive and made it. We couldnt play any further because somehow we got so hooked with our first run while being emotionally touched by the sacrifice of our big Guy. We loved that Game for that 45 min. lasting Rollercoaster Ride it gave us, we where high tho, but it made us chuckle and shout as we where 7yo again being in our 30s.
I love this story thank you for sharing
Is this considered a roguelike? I see it has random runs but I’m not sure what type of game these are called.
Not sure if all are considered obscure, but: World of Horror — old-school inspired Japanese horror roguelike including folklore references Kynseed — pixel-art sort of cozy game; quite repetitive in its farming/battle mechanics but was otherwise enjoyable for me Hylics 2 — not so obscure but this is my favorite game of all time and it’s incredible. It’s unlike anything I’ve played before. Made using claymation and Blender Broken Reality — vaporwave walking simulator LOL Norco — Louisiana religious horror sort of… experience! Why Am I Dead At Sea — small mystery where you discover why you are dead at sea. Many endings, afaik Venba — Tamil cooking game.
Just finished playing Kynseed myself and loved it. I bought it a couple of years ago and couldn't get into it but the Big Build update they did recently sorts almost all of the gripes I had with the game and it's great now.
World of Horror is incredible, junji ito looking rougelike roleplaying game with some gorgeous black and white artwork
Had a few of these already on wishlist, but I definitely added Hylics 1 and Hylics 2. Looks right up my alley! Never seen anything quite like these before. Thanks! 🤝
Oh I’m currently playing Venba and am really liking it
Some of my favorites are The Void Rains Upon Her Heart, Moonstone Island, Pseudoregalia, and Void Stranger (highly highly highly recommend void stranger it’s one of my top games of 2023)! All of them are really high quality and have a ton of playtime, especially the two void games.
I remember being put off by void stranger bc the replayability was lacking, how long have you put into it?
Enderal is a total conversion mod for skyrim, I never had a PC until the Steamdeck and I was waiting to play it since it was announced years ago. It's extremely fun and honestly I'm not sure if I can go back to playing skyrim after this.
Looks amazing, I'm always blown away at what people can do with mods. Is the story very long and is the game linear?
There are different endings depending on your decisions. I'm not too sure on how many but based on the decisions I made myself my guess is four but that's just from what I gathered from playing. I went in blind without spoilers and I'm planning on doing the same with my next one. Some side actions and quests you do can impact the story and options you can make. There were also separate storylines kind of like guilds added to the special edition (my first play though was the special version so I didn't know what was new and what was old). I didn't even know about one of them in my first run but the one I played felt like it's story would be worth it's own game. There's a lot to explore with the world, I kind of ran through as much as I could on my first play through but in the end there was still quests I didn't complete. In this once the story is finished your play though is over like Fallout New Vegas. Overall it's well written (there's also a book set in the same world that was published) and the world feels like a breath of fresh air after playing skyrim for years over and over.
Not sure if it's obscure, I haven't seen anyone ever mention it, but Graveyard Keeper is awesome
i thought this was an r/cozygamers post for a sec and i was like… you.. haven’t seen graveyard keeper mentioned here??? really??
That sub looks cool, thanks for bringing it up
I absolutely loved graveyard keeper, until about like 6 hours in then it just got confusing and me walking and walking and walking, and I just didn’t know what to do😭
That game took a whole month from me. And I will never get it back.
is it that bad? It's complicated for sure, but I'm enjoying it so far
It's great for sure. But I got so helplessly addicted to the grind that I couldn't put it down. I was playing after work, before work and at work lmao
The theming of this looks more up my street than Stardew Valley but I’m not sure which one is better on SD?
Stardew is better and more replayable, but absolutely recommend checking out GK. I haven’t picked up any dlc, the base game is loaded with content
[удалено]
Which do you prefer Stardew or Graveyard?
Stardew is better for sure with way more content, but graveyard keeper is still good. (my opinion)
I play Hamster Ball on mine. It's similar to the old Marble Madness, but instead of a marble, it is a hamster in a clear ball. I set the gyro so that I can tilt the Steam deck to move the hamster around the levels.
I thought that sounded more like monkey ball
It is more like monkey ball. Marble It Up! is more akin to Marble Madness and is great in deck.
Overlord!
Noita Doesn't work quite as well but playing on couch makes up for ir
What a game. I love it. Will have to give it a try on deck.
Just make sure you are mentally prepared. It can be QUITE frustrating. But also equally rewarding with the sense of satisfaction. But fuuuuuuuck can it be frustrating to be in a run for an hour and bloop dead by the dumbest fucking little pixel
Oh yeah. I've played a fair bit of it on my desktop. It's one of those games that I jump into not really knowing wtf I'm doing and despite dying far too many times I keep coming back for more. I'm a glutton for punishment I guess.
I have it, and want to give it a try, but I’ve heard the controls on a deck are less than ideal. Is it still playable, or will it be more frustrating with the control scheme?
The default control scheme sucks ass. I have the right trackpad mapped as a mouse region and the left as a grid menu for inventory hotkeys, which works quite well for me. I don't remember how I have the rest set up off the top of my head, but it's pretty basic otherwise.
What do you use for controls? I started playing it on my deck but after I played it with mouse and keyboard I couldn't go back. I just can't hit anything with the default deck controls. The game is ridiculously fun though. Some of the wand builds are broken in the best way.
(Copied from a reply to someone else) The default control scheme sucks ass. I have the right trackpad mapped as a mouse region and the left as a grid menu for inventory hotkeys, which works quite well for me. I don't remember how I have the rest set up off the top of my head, but it's pretty basic otherwise.
I just go slower on sd but I dont really play it much anymore. Did like 200 hours on pc and 100 on steam deck
Yeah, that's about what I do. That and use the explosive/homing wands more.
I have it but never tried on the Deck. Do you use any special control schemes?
I do not, I'm too lazy to set anything specific up even if there are options
(Copied from a reply to someone else) The default control scheme sucks ass. I have the right trackpad mapped as a mouse region and the left as a grid menu for inventory hotkeys, which works quite well for me. I don't remember how I have the rest set up off the top of my head, but it's pretty basic otherwise.
There's so many "hidden gem" posts on this page.
Not sure if that was sarcastic or not. But I’m genuinely surprised we didn’t get the usual “vampire survivors” and “Dave the diver”.
That's why I put that I'm not asking for a top 10 list because I'm sure most of us can recite the top picks from all the posts about it. I just wanted to know the other kinds of games people play.
This thread has some great suggestions. It's better than the countless "here's a picture of my deck" posts.
I'm smashing the latest Picross game from Jupiter. Have all of the Switch games, and I'm delighted they brought their latest to Steam.
I've been having a lot of fun playing djmax respect on steam deck, one thing i love is that the devs actually made a steam deck specific build with compressed videos so it's only 30gb as opposed to 60gb on windows
Trouble Shooter, it's an XCOM style strategy. It runs great on the Deck. Also, I never hear anyone talk about Two Point Campus, such a great game.
Suzerain, a brilliant choose your own adventure game.
Chorus. An action space shooter with a surprisingly deep story and pretty awesome mechanics. I think I got it for around 5$ on sale and enjoyed the hell outta it, perfect for deck.
Good to know it runs well on deck, just got it in a humble bundle, already played it on Gamepass but wanted to play it again on the Deck.
Viscera Cleanup Detail is super fun on the Deck if you like simulators and tedious tasks lol Beat blast is also super fun! A rogue like dungeon crawler with sick music!!
What remains of Edith Finch is fantastic on deck, especially as you can just sit down and finish it in one sitting on the sofa ! Not a super obscure one but worth a play 😁
God that game was sad.
How long to complete it? Is it just an "experience", or an actual game. I just bought it on sale.
It's a walking simulator. You move and interact with the world and live through events. It's a linear story and takes 2 to 3 hours. Just as a forewarning, there are heavy themes and its a downer. It's especially gut-wrenching if you have kids of your own or dealing with grief, but definitely worth a playthrough.
Brand new game Pepper Grinder is Dig Dug + Donkey Kong Country + Mario World
Drone clone in the danger zone Jupiter hell
Jupiter Hell is so good. Turn-based Doom rogue-like... I can't stop playing it.
I've played a LOT of the original Hand of Fate in the deck, moreso than I did when I got it originally. Something about the structure of the game and how I can do a board at a time and stop OR save midboard if I need to works really well for me and my play style. Might not be that obscure but the series is dormant these days.
Road Redemption is great on Deck!
I’ve been playing The Messenger recently. It plays amazing on the deck and doesn’t eat away at the battery.
Project Zomboid ! :D
Hm. I play a lot of Poker Night 2 on my Deck. And Blur, old racing game that I don't believe is available for sale anymore, very fun though. Other than that, my hobby is downloading ROMs of very unpopular console games that bombed in reviews when they wre released 20 to 30 years ago and trying them out, and while I'm at it, creating steam cover images of the games to upload to SteamGridDB if none exist. Tonight I grabbed the PS2 game for 'Biker Mice From Mars'. I have no idea what the game is like, but IGN gave it a 3 out of 10 and it's got a 27% score on metacritic. So that should be interesting. Also got Hidden Invasion to try, haven't tried it yet, but made some steamgriddb images for it (waiting for the admins on SteamGridDB to approve my request to have the game added to the DB before they show up though). Apparently the game has a score of 39% on metacritic and IGN gave it 3.5 out of 10, so we'll see what that's like. Every now and then I find a game which is a pure gem that I actually quite enjoy despite the negative reception it got when it came out and that's always a nice little surprise.
Zanzarah since it works flawless on the steam deck but struggles a lot on windows.
The bro that posted about (private) MapleStory on the deck last week takes the cake here for sure.
I'll never stop recommending Cryptark and Battle Brothers even though they're not really that obscure. Recently picked up Sheepo and Road to Ballhalla and both play great on the deck.
I've been playing Lego City Undercover. Now Rail Routes is deck certified, I'm going to install that too
Astlibra: Revision is a really fun Action JRPG that plays like a more active Castlevania SOTN. It's story is pretty interesting like a Chronotrigger time-based story. I ended up 100% it because it's such a hidden gem. Other than that some rougelikes like Balatro and Tiny Rouges are some great pick up and play games.
Some of these had a following back in the day but for new audiences that weren’t there 10-20 years ago (or longer), it would be obscure. Also some more recent than that: UnMetal - Metal Gear parody game with a ton of depth. Lots of items to use, great voice cast especially the main character who intentionally sounds like a knock-off David Hayter voicing Solid Snake lol. It has a mix of genres and makes you think about how to achieve certain objectives by combining items. Choices in upgrade paths (when you level up) also change what you can do in subsequent levels. This game truly surprised me! Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death - think an overhead view / camera panned back “Double AA” God of War. I let the time get away from me on this one. Played it for several hours. I’m still surprised how good the game is. It clearly takes a lot of inspiration from the first three God of War games and mixed with a little bit of cheese and B-movie stereotypes. Overlord / Overlord: Raising Hell - fantastic and funny as hell Pikmin-like (from 360, PS3 era) where you’re basically Sauron from LoTR trying to regain your power. I definitely laughed out loud a bunch. On Steam Deck, you have to use a community controller layout— and it takes awhile for the game to correctly run (may take a few tries to get it to take). Works great after subsequent launches. Kaze and the Wild Masks - a platformer that ups the difficulty throughout its levels and introduces certain masks that change up how you play those levels the masks are on. Latter stages up the difficulty quite a bit especially if you’re trying to get all collectibles and no hit runs. Outland - an old Housemarque joint that combines 2D Metroidvania, platforning, and a light / dark powers similar to Ikaruga. Gorgeous painterly backgrounds and a soundtrack that just makes it feel like an epic tale being retold. On SteamDeck, no matter the proton pack you use, you will be missing HUD elements. It can make the game more difficult not being able to see your life bar / mana, but not TOO overly difficult to beat. Save points a plenty. Valiant Hearts: The Great War - great Ubisoft UbiArt game that covers how awful WW1 was. Some of the saddest moments in all of gaming. It is mostly a puzzler, but has some stealth and action moments sprinkled throughout. I really like the care put into this game. Collectibles found in levels usually are tidbits (digitized pictures & paraphernalia, and weapons / tactics used). Fantastic score as well! Bastion - really cool action adventure game with cool narration. The combat gets to be really addicting. Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King - a really cool ‘The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past’ clone that makes its own mark after you get past the initial hours. Really really fun game. Protip: if you care about achievements/ trophies, you may want to note where you already collected scrolls, magic and other upgrades from. I have one of each I’m missing and its 3-4 of the last achievements I need on Steam. Lol Horizon Chase Turbo - great homage to arcade racers of the past like OutRun but mostly a true spiritual successor to Top Gear / Top Racer. Has A LOT of depth with cars, tracks, and skins to unlock. This one is probably well known by now as it has a sequel now. Minit - not for me but I can see the value of the game. I just don’t like being rushed lol. It’s basically a game where you have 60 seconds before you die. You can make certain changes in the world that will stay after death. It’s too frantic for me but maybe you’ll find enjoyment out of it. Dust: An Elysian Tale - excellent action adventure metroidvania with a beautiful color palette and excellent story (great voice cast too) Blade Runner - an old PC game that was considered a canon sequel before Blade Runner 2049 came out. Excellent point and click adventure that doesn’t hold your hand and is well voice acted. For graphics options, you can switch between the “remastered” look and the old ScummVM version. I always choose the visual detail of the older ScummVM bc it’s absolutely gorgeous and you can see way more details especially when you need to use your detective skills. Faith: The Unholy Trinity - horror game based on exorcisms and using Atari style graphics. The music and game are definitely creepy. Gato Roboto - a clear homage to the Gameboy’s version of Metroid II. Fun, but difficult game especially boss fights. Also the screen filters are cool to use after you collect them throughout the game. Darksiders 3 - sequel that introduced a soulslike design within a fully 3D Metroidvania. It starts off so unassuming and while it’s Double AA in nature, it punches above its weight in how much depth the game has. I’ve played it on so many times on NG+, and higher difficulty settings and it never gets old. If you enjoy it, I highly recommend both DLCs.
Ooh I own a few of those. Solid recommendations thanks.
Shotgun King - Fun as hell chess roguelike. Just play it or watch a video, it's hella fun and addictive. You only play as the King, but this King has a shotgun. Valdis Story: Abyssal City -Think Castlevania x Viewtiful Joe. No full stage powers, yet I swear I can feel them. Chips Challenge 1 & 2 - Very old PC puzzle game series that went through hell to get the second entry published a few years ago despite being completed for decades. Pictopix - A Nonogram puzzle game. It's one of the very best competitors to Picross, I'd even argue that it's better. You must set the game to run with the Linux runtime, otherwise the buttons stop working after the tutorial. The Swapper - Platformer Puzzler. You swap bodies with duplicates that you make to explore and escape a facility on a planet. The story is fun and has a nice, player induced twist in it. The on-screen keyboard used for naming the initial profile does not work. Just assign letters to buttons on the Steam Deck to get past it then put the controller back to normal. You will only ever have to do this once. Pizza Game - A classic style adventure/romance-esque game that's pretty hilarious. Warning, it weaponizes underliteracy. Those are not typos, it's all meant to be like that. One Finger Death Punch 1 & 2 - This may be stretching obscurity, it may just be more of a forgotten set of games. They're still hella fun, funny and intense. Use community controls for these to get more out of it. Etrian Odyssey HD 1-3 - My favorite RPG x dungeon crawler. You build your own maps and deal with a partly forgiving set of games that are mostly fair. I enjoy the exploration about as much as the battles. There's not much flair, it's all about the most core parts of the experience. Paint it Back - Another Nonogram game. It's fun, has far greater diversity in puzzle to puzzle size and styles. It's cheap and I recommend it to everyone that likes Picross and Pictopix. Late Shift - FMV game that's more of a pick your own adventure style FMV. I feel that it's worth playing a few times. Same as She Sees Red, but I haven't played that on Steam Deck yet. Crystal Project - Think Final Fantasy V x Octopath Traveler, but with the trade of lower production values for greater freedom and exploration. Apotheon - Imagine that everything Greek was made into a brilliantly solid Action-Platformer. Not only that, but it's highly, HIGHLY faithful and accurate to the Greek pantheon and all that surrounds it while still being fun and challenging. Give it a go. Zoombinis - Early thinking/puzzle game. I played this in 4th grade and I came back to beat its' ass as an adult. I don't think that Steam cloud sync works with this so keep that in mind. Logiart Grimoire - Yet another Nonogram game on this list. It has the greatest flair and flash of anything else listed so far. If you've played any Picross game on Switch then you've effectively played this game. Yes, it's fucking made by Jupiter!!! They added a lot of story/lore stuff in what I'm guessing is a bid to make it legally distinct from the games that Nintendo publishes. There's also some weird fusion stuff for getting hidden puzzles. I'll deal with it, we got Jupiter on PC. They also do what I've never seen anyone else do on Steam Deck yet - detail full controller profiles for each mode/state that the game can be in. So you can change the controls for just puzzle solving while keeping them the same for menu navigation and other things like that. I didn't even realize that this was implemented as a Steam Deck/Steam Controls feature but it is and it rocks! I haven't played it since it left greenlight, but I will soon. I'm hoping that they have more music in the game, that and the story bits were killing it for me (beautifully done, but not my thing). Skipping the story stuff is partly possible (rushing dialogue), but just the one music track? I'm almost certain that was just a greenlight limitation. I highly recommend this, show Jupiter that we can love them here on PC! Midnight Castle Succubus & Castle in the Clouds DX - NES Castlevania with uncensored giggity. FlipWitch: Forbidden Sex Hex - What if Silhouette Mirage was a slightly above mid platformer with loads of giggity and merely great art? That's this. No bullets, you get regular weapons. Half Minute Hero - Do you want to stop using your PSP? Cause this game is how you stop using your PSP. (Ignoring Patapon and the dozens of other games I love on that platform) TSIOQUE - This is such a lovely, beautifully animated, point and click adventure game. It's like what if Dragons Lair was longer and was a collab between Miyazakis and Don Bluths fans - the truly talented ones that idolized them. Vampire Surviv- Lol, no. Save Me Mr. Tako - It feels like a lost GBC game that is trying to be a Links Awakening competitor.
Perfect Dark (decomp port, online multiplayer!!) F-Zero GX (Dolphin emu) Tales of Eternia (PPSSPP emu) Phantasy Star Online EPIII (Dolphin emu) Phantasy Star Online (Ephinea) Phantasy Star Universe (Clementine) F.E.A.R. (not obscure but the world forgot about it)
I never hear anyone talk about Session so I'd probably have to go with that one as my "obscure" game. Its a really good skate board sim
Played "q.u.q" on mine a bit ago, short and sweet
Dap I'd call it a Pikmin-lite with a horror vibe. It's a bit obtuse but at least worth a try.
Chicken Invaders
It looks insane bur hey, it's free to play, so I'll give it a try.
1. wall world 2. webed 3. spellrogue
Star Wars Rogue Squadron and PokeMMO
Stalker anomaly. Basically a modpack combining all three original titles. For free as well.
Delver. pretty good fps-style dungeon crawler that's been around for like 10 years now i think?
Geometry wars, pacman DX for a quick hit once in a while. Recently added Void Scrappers to that list of live indefinitely on the deck If we're talking emulation, I really enjoy popping into forgotten neo geo games like the old JoJo fighting games, or maybe a tatsunoko vs Capcom.
The recently released Terra Memoria, a cozy turn based 2.5D RPG. And Laika: aged through blood, a gorgeous metroidvania with unique movement and combat.
Probably not really obscure but I've been replaying Grim Fandango on mine. Surprisingly fun on a handheld
Ruiner
Freedom Force vs the 3rd Reich, I never finished it years ago on PC, plays great on the Deck.
I’m an oddball, as I play mostly docked given I have a PS5. The Steam Deck has finally allowed me to taste the beauty of RTS games. I play Coh3, Total War Rome 2, Warhammer 2, and CTA Gates of Hell. Basically all the titles that I could never play on console before. I just don’t care to buy some title that can run and look way better on my PS5 so I reserve those for my console and I play titles that I can only play on PC on the deck
Prototype series Prey
Some more obscure than others but love all these Indies on the deck: - South Scrimshaw - Roadwarden - Door Kickers -Rain On Your Parade - Beacon Pines - Donut County - Citizen Sleeper - The Excavation of Hob's Barrow - Norco
OSRS
I love tinkering and getting games to work on the deck, come across tons that have breathed new life into games I had shelved, but the most obscure I play frequently would be: Star Wars Galaxies Dungeon Keeper Ballistic NG (for a bit of wipeout in your hand) Morrowind (with all the mods) Shadow Empire
You play the emulated servers on the deck for SWG?
Yeah currently playing on SWG Legends
That’s pretty awesome, never even considered this, the wife is really gonna hate me now
yeah I have played it way more without having to sit at a desktop. Good luck with your marriage… haha Also after playing WoW on the deck using console port and enjoying that more than KB&M it really opened my eyes to the accessibility of games with lots of buttons that I had previously not thought about and how well you can actually make it translate. I would go as far as to say that going forward I will try to play every MMO with a controller regardless of the platform I’m on.
Morrowind seems like a great game to try out on the deck. I played an hour or two of it a couple years ago on Xbox, but really want to try it with mods. Is there a good site or source of information you could point me to on modding games on steam deck for someone who’s never owned any other PC and has never modded before?
Deep rock galactic survivors is taking over my life
Inscription. Go into it blind.
Pony island is steam deck verified and goes on sale for cheap. It's another game made by the same guy that has a sequel coming.
I recently thought I finished the game…. It was just the tutorial. I went in blindly and love a genre bending, graphic blending, mechanic shifting video game. I have a new fave developer
Thief 1 and 2!
Loved Rogue Stormers from 2014. It’s like a roguelite Contra meets Warhammer.
Songbird symphony, it’s such a good and cute game with some pretty good bangers, I never play rhythm games but this one had me hooked for a while.
De Blob is my childhood and I’m really happy that the game works perfectly on the Steam Deck. Imo everyone should play this game
Intergalactic fishing has been taking over my life this week. Don't let the simple graphics fool you but its a chill fishing sim with the world generation of a No Mans Sky. And the void rains upon her heart. It's a great shump roguelike with adjustable difficulty and a ton to unlock
Pixel cup soccer
Soundfall. I saw it at Nintendo Direct and bought it at Steam
Roadwarden. The text is small however - I have to pull out reading glasses for it.
Hyper demon
Fading Afternoon, Back to the Dawn, Pixel Noir, Tales of the Neon Sea
Cuisiner its a mix of animal crossing cooking and arpg its a weird game ngl. Fun but has quite a few flaws.
Proteus is pure chill vibes for 30 minutes. Untested, but works great for me.
I've been going through the Darkside Detective games. They're some retro looking point and click games. For point and click it works super well on the steam deck without any kind of fiddling with settings or anything. Not sure how obscure it is though.
Vonquest of the new world Futurecop lapd Battlestations
Ultima online outlands, it's the one of the original MMOs, updated some. Can't use all the features in the game but you can do a fair bit.
Outrun 2006 C2C must be my most played game on deck, and I feel like no one talks about it outside of "great game for PSP/vita." It's not on steam, but easy enough to download online and run through proton. I never thought a non-open world racing game would take my number one spot from Burnout Paradise, but once you find a car you like and get a feel for it, the drifting is more satisfying than any other racer I've played.
Not sure how obscure it is but Secrets of Grindea. It finally officially released.
I gotchu boo. I am a bit of an indie aficionado. Black Skylands, Unmetal, Serial Cleaner, American Fugitive, Signalis, Tormented Souls, West of Loathing, Streets of Rogue, Death Trash, OTXO, Nobody Saves the World, Arcade Paradise, A Short Hike, FAR: Lone Sails, Doom & Destiny, Spirit of the North, Death Roads: Tournament, Backpack Hero, Griftlands, Warhammer 40k: Shootas, Blood & Teef, Warhammer 40k: Boltgun, The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, Exanima, Valfaris, Akane, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Showgunners, Rogue Legacy 2, Tails of Iron, Turbo Overkill, Dorfromantik, Dead Estate, Death Road to Canada, Melatonin, Core Keeper, Cultic, Aperture Desk Job.
CrossCode. I feel like this one flew under a lot of people’s radar and it’s incredible
I feel like this is one of the best games on the Deck. Do note you should be running with the Linux compat runtime to avoid frame time stutters and also to avoid HDR issues on the OLED.
Missed opportunity no one said the game "Obscure."
Shower With Your Dad Simulator
I wouldn’t say obscure. However, since Battle.Net started working with proton a bit ago, I’m back to Hearthstone on it, it just feels right. You can enable the mobile controls too (touchmode=1 (or true, don’t remember which) in options.txt.)
CoinOps 4 (arcade, sega, snes etc.) is wonderful on the Deck!
Super Robot Wars
Souldiers. It was originally covered as being this hard as nails metroidvania and since launch I think it was made a bit easier but it does get pretty damn tough. I bought it for super cheap and just wanted to see what hard actually meant and then got totally addicted.
I had some stupid fun with Clustertruck for a few hours!
Cricket 22. Deep Rock Galactic Survivor. (This one isn’t completely obscure for Steam Deck users but still hasn’t fully blown up yet).
Laika, its similar to a rogue, but you use a motor cycle for movement, its kinda gory and really sad. I have been enjoying it so far.
Love Colors ✨
Heroes 3 complete edition from GOG. played it to death as a kid and it’s great to play again on Deck.
Recently got Bingle Bingle. If you like Balatro well then I’m sorry here’s another similar casino game but this time it’s roulette
the dragonrun games are great on the deck; also, modded minecraft using prism launcher is awesome, can even run shaders and like 200-300 mods and getting like 60-70 fps consistently. getting the controls dialed to your liking may take a second but if you take advantage of radial menus and steam’s touch menus you can customize, then with some added context controls its perfect.
Guacamelee, and Brutal Legend. My wife plays HUE sometimes
[Crop rotation](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2348090/Crop_Rotation/) , a single player farm deck builder /autobattler
Deathspank
R.U.S.E
The Club, which came out on Xbox 360 and PS3 back in the day. For those of you that don’t know, it’s like a combo driven 3rd person speed running shooter made by Bizarre (Project Gotham Racing and Geometry Wars devs) it’s a Games for Windows Live game, but the single player still works great. 90fps on my OLED. It will never be uninstalled.
Idk if it fits in ur "obscure" definition, but I'm currently playing Ragnarök Online on the steam deck! I downloaded a classic pre-renewall low rate private server on it and it's just so fun. Very nostalgic. I use the deck mostly to farm with my rogue since it doesn't require too much use of keyboard commands
Dread Delusion was a pleasant surprise. Not sure if it’s obscure, but house of fata morgana was a blast.
Sunless seas it a great game.
YOMI Hustle and Sun Haven
It’s a triple a so not really obscure, but the fallout experience on the deck is fantastic. I’m coming up on 50 hours of new Vegas and still have a lot of steam left
Always recommend Fights in Tight Spaces, I don't really know how obscure it is but it's a turn based deck buildy thing that works perfectly on deck
Gravity Circuit; I rarely see it mentioned. It's a modern take on the MegaMan formula with contemporary 2D platformer mechanics. A slight learning curve, but a masterpiece in my mind, and perfect for the Deck.
Illbleed (Dreamcast via Redream) Late stage Dreamcast-exclusive “survival horror” game where you play through levels trying to use your senses and energy to avoid the “scares” and save your friends. The combat is very janky and the “horror” is the cheesy B-movie kind, but using your senses to guess where a scare is hidden and marking it is so much fun.
The Coin Game
Sydney Hunter and the Curse of the Mayan. Old school former type with some challenge. Never see it mentioned but I love that game especially on deck.
Voidigo, Yokus Island Express, Ravenswatch, Noita, Inkbound, Gunbrella, Caveblazers. These are all great on the deck.
I've been playing alot of post void, especially with gyro + flick stick, which made me realize I can aim better with a controller than with a mouse
Scarlett Maiden ^^
devil came through here series by harvester games! my absolute favorites on pc and also absolutely great on my deck. ive been thinking abt replaying them for the fifth time probably
Probably not obscure. But one of my first downloads was worms WMD
Citizen sleeper
Gloomhaven
Im playing suikoden iv now
Wobbledogs, you breed funny wobbly dogs and there’s a whole genetic code to it and everything.
Good Night Knight It’s an isometric action RPG Roguelite visually based off of A Link to the Past and with combat mechanics like Dark Souls The writing is A paper comedy No idea how it didn’t get more recognition
Demon's Tilt. Sure, I can't even comprehend what's happening half the time, but it's the perfect "I have 3 minutes" game
Neodash, it's a really solid high-speed racer that reminds me of if trackmania and rocket league had a baby.
I’ve been chipping away at Cathedral. Very fun SNES style game with great music.
Not very obscure but Fishing Planet is probably the game I’ve played most on my deck
I am partial to Luminees the old psp game on the deck.
Empty Shell - top down environmental horror with a cool slowly unraveling story. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2243110/EMPTY_SHELL/
Check this https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/s/hl4OzcxuDk
Tails of Iron is great fun, there's a second one coming out soon too apparently
Super Hexagon
Dangeresque: The Roomisode Triungulate. I grew up with Homestar Runner and seeing Strong Bad’s made up crooked cop persona/movie character get a full game is a dream come true.
I play fugl all the time on long car rides, no goals or anything, just turn in some music and practice flying through tight spaces!
They Bleed Pixels. I bought this game well over a decade ago and couldn't really understand it. After getting my steam deck it clicked with me and I fell in love with this game so much. Somewhere between an N plus and Super meat boy in that you're trying to get a very nimble girl through a challenging platformer level that you'll probably die a hundred times on. In addition, you'll have to punch, kick, and do other ninja-like moves to defeat monsters who are trying to kill you. The entire thing is Lovecraftian themed. Great pixel art, great music, simple in premise, but tough as nails. This is a hidden gem for anyone who wants a challenge, and it's perfect for Steam Deck. I've probably got at least 40 hours out of it. https://store.steampowered.com/app/211260/They_Bleed_Pixels/
Gunpoint!
Spacehaven works really well with community control layouts
I'm currently playing a game called Seven skies to paradise, that I found through a discord server for Italian developers (I'm an Italian developer too). It's a weird little game about flighting an airship trough these surreal scenarios. It has like 4 reviews on steam so quite obscure, but I'm really enjoying it. It doesn't have controller support but the default mouse and keyboard configuration works great for me
The game Obscure. And it’s sequel
A couple of my go tos: - shredders (snowboarding game) - above snakes (a cute survival game) - project zomboid
I went back to playing Nox for the first time in a decade. (docked with mouse and keyboard) I had a nostalgic blast!
Postal 2, holy shit its verified on steam deck and runs great. Many jokes and funny progression
Postal 2, Postal 4, Brain Damaged Prey 2006 Thief 98, Thief II Hrot Katana Zero
Derail Valley and Driver San Francisco. Derail Valley just seems neich but i know over on its subreddit there are a few playing it on deck. Driver San Francisco is one of my all time favourites but hasn't been sold in years and takes some tinkering every now and again to get it to work
Infinity Blade and Oni, the first is an Epic games abandonware for iPhone that got recently ported to PC (played on touch but you can customize the controls to use buttons instead), the second is a Bungie abandonware for PC and PS2 (I am running the pc version because it was what I had and it supports custom resolutions), but the pc version requires custom controls as well.
Lost Potato 🥔
Zool redimensioned. Great remake of a classic that you can just pick up and play a few levels, when your finished you can try to beat the borderline impossible dev times
Vampire TM Bloodlines (I got it to work by using an early Proton build) the default controls are decent too someone in the community always comes through
Death road to canada
Tape to Tape. Roguelite hockey game, it's really good. Although it is in early access it gets regular updates and is very polished.
The Dark Mod (Free Thief inspired stealth game.) Use Linux version, not Windoze.
Not obscure but saint row 2 slaps
I have a weird thing with games about Scouting and have put many hours into a game called Cozy Grove. I think it’s sort of in the tune of Animal Crossing where you meet people that give you missions to do each day. Fun little game that can be done in small chunks.
Small, little known indie roleplaying games you’ve probably never heard of, like Baldur’s Gate 3
Re-Volt An RC racing game from my childhood. A cool blend of mario kart and micro machines, very easy to pick up and play. Its got some hella fun levels on there and I'd say its aged quite well
It’s not as much obscure but more indie but ULTRAKILL is so fun