Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon is like Skyrim but with better combat and dar King Arthur themed.
Potion Craft is a game where you run an alchemist shop, entirely stylized to look like medieval paintings.
Buddy Simulator 1984 is a game about a digital companion that likes you too much.
I could give more, but I never see anyone recommend those, and you have a lot of recommendations in this thread already.
“In a world of black people, be white”
I ended up settling on spells in my left hand, sword in my right, dodging like a maniac.
Right up until the last 3 hours where I respec’d into exclusively two-handed sword + heavy armor because
the game kinda pushes you into it with the King Arthur gear. Imo respec’ing is too easy, and too necessary. The stat requirements for that armor were so specific and high, and I guessed correctly that I wouldn’t need any of my social stats for the rest of the game. Fortunately, I really enjoyed the pure sword combat, so I still had fun, but my character went from light armor spell-sword to plate armor greatsword wielder for just the final dungeon. Kinda odd when you think about it in the RP context.
The backwards-compatibility stuff already in this thread is all true, but also they don’t know how to remove some things. Microsoft has wanted to entirely replace Control Panel with Settings since Windows 8 came out, but they gave up. And rewriting the whole operating system from scratch would take decades and still inevitably lose compatibility with some of the random old software mentioned here.
It’s actually way easier to treat sewage than it is to desalinate water: https://www.waterandwastewater.com/how-is-desalination-different-from-water-reclamation/
Boy Boy
Neon White, Cyberhook, and Crumble are all excellent, though you might be looking for a more traditional platformer.
Blue Fire is decent and definitely worth checking out while it’s $4 right now.
Full story Machinima style series are rare, but if you just want heavy editing and a somewhat coherent plot as opposed to nearly unedited gameplay, Alpharad and LarsBurrito might work. Alpharad heavily edits his videos and usually writes a script to go over the gameplay that does a good job pulling a story out of the footage. LarsBurrito does a similar style, but also often does themed playthroughs where he writes the script to flavor the playthrough to fit whatever character he’s roleplaying as.
If you want actual story but are ok with significantly less editing, Mianite is a series I rewatch every once in a while in a similar way you describe. The scripted story doesn’t really start picking up until a significant way through season 1, but there is still enough conflict between the different players to make it more than just a Let’s Play.
Indeed. The sources I’ve read seem to lay blame with games not usually patenting mechanics (which apparently is all patent officers look at for prior art, not other games), meaning it needs active challenging to be thrown out.
PocketPair is based in Japan, which is where the previous, more directly problematic patents have been filed mid-litigation. While there is clearly prior art for the US patent, it isn’t quite as comically broad as the Japan ones, and since Japan doesn’t seem to care about prior art, those remain the most concerning to me.
In the US, yes. In Japan, it would appear such a concept does not exist.
Yeah but not raw milk straight from the udder (unless you enjoy salmonella), letting it dribble down your chin and get in your beard (unless that’s what does it for you I guess, you do you)
My main gripe with TLJ is that the editing is a total mess. Multiple scenes lose continuity between shots. The most egregious example is the milk scene, which in addition to being gross and unnecessary, was clearly jammed in between two shots meant to be continuous. Rey and Luke start walking down a skinny peninsula, no space cow in sight, then hard cut to space cow and Luke milking it, then hard cut back to the end of the peninsula and Luke setting down his stuff.
I found one for NieR: Automata at a used bookstore that has maps, a ton of concept art, and a short story.
Race condition
I’m not saying it isn’t insanely hard (actually I mentioned that fact twice), I’m just trying to point out that Steam gives developers more tools for visibility than any storefront that exists, with most storefronts giving no tools whatsoever. Any game with no marketing budget selling enough to support a multiple-person development team, when they have to compete directly with AAA games, is impressive for both the developer and the platform.
If you want to advocate for improvements and change, you can’t just ignore the positive things that already exist.
~Also you clearly didn’t read the page about the update visibility rounds, because those have nothing to do with popularity and are completely randomized regarding who among the recently-updated games gets a spot on the front page. In fact, your game gets rotated off that spot once you’ve gotten 1 million impressions.~
Blatantly untrue, as update visibility rounds are one of several marketing tools Steam gives you that can put your game on the front page for free, regardless of popularity.
Kitfox Games has published a guide (one among many you can find on the internet) on how to successfully market a game with no advertising budget. While their existing audience definitely helped, and as they mention, it takes a significant amount of time and effort, they do not spend actual money on sponsorships or advertising. This would not be a viable strategy on any other storefront, save maybe Epic, though Epic still gives fewer tools than Steam.
Steam has been coasting on the fact that everyone shoots themselves in the foot, sure, but you should look into the unparalleled level of “free” (30% cut) marketing support Steam gives to developers. On no other platform could developers end up with the visibility they achieve on Steam with nothing more than very strategic timing and good social media presence. It’s still insanely hard, but the fact that it’s even possible to compete with zero marketing budget against AAA companies speaks volumes.
It is a little insane how many games release on any given day. On July 15, 2025, 150 “titles” (of which 78 are actual games, not demos or DLC) were added to the Steam store. I would guess that their data includes all titles, but even just 78 real games on what should be a slower-than-average random Tuesday could totally contribute to 34,000 games released in a year.
I see lots of discussion about the solution / what used to be done, but I want to point out why unofficial servers stopped being easy/standard/possible to run.
The first time big money entered esports was on private Starcraft LAN tournaments. Blizzard sued to get a cut of the proceeds, but because the privately-owned software (game and server) was running on privately-owned hardware, the courts ruled that Blizzard got no money.
AAA companies learned from this that allowing the playerbase to run their own servers meant losing out on money, so most AAA multiplayer games with even a small chance of ending up as esports make it so they can only connect to servers operated by themselves, longevity of the game be damned. If they weren’t so desparate for every scrap of cash they could possibly generate from the game, I would bet most multiplayer game would still let you run your own servers, like they used to.
I wonder if this counts as baiting for the states where it’s illegal