Lost and forgotten (except by us)

[Binky]

The Lost Tribe (1992)
Short and simple - but sweet. A volcano has destroyed your home! Lead your prehistoric tribe to a new one. A pauper's King of Dragon Pass.
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/the-lost-tribe-1na

People's General (1998)
Panzer General (all 50 of them) & Fantasy General are well known. Less so for People's General. Commie China drinks too much green tea and goes on the offensive in Asia.

https://www.myabandonware.com/game/people-s-general-a05

Conflict: Middle East Political Simulator (1990)
Another simple game. Defend Israel and don't let Arabs get nukes.

Original game:
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/conflict-uy
Remake:
http://ilfera.blogspot.com/2009/02/end.html

All Holistic Design stuff is criminally unknown outside a few select places. Hammer of the Gods has already been mentioned in this thread.
Machiavelli: The Prince (1995)
Greed is good. Mammon reigns supreme in Renaissance Italy. Slander, bribe, kill. All is allowed in pursuit of mountains of cash.

https://www.myabandonware.com/game/machiavelli-the-prince-2aj
Emperor of the Fading Suns (1997)
Oh dear. Full drool warning.

Spoiler

Jesus bellydancing Christ! A delicious post-apoc feudal setting. The nobility vs the Church vs Merchant League vs aliens vs heretics. Each group has subfactions: ex. Church (the crusader Brother Battle, pyromaniacal Avestites, kooky Escatonics, compassionate Amaltheans,...).

Get yourself elected regent and then emperor - without becoming a puppet of the Patriarch and before the Merchant League amasses enough cash to declare a republic, and, you know, without getting your House wiped out.

Base game was a broken, unfinished mess. A single turn could take forever, the so-called aggressive Symbiots just sat on their tentacles instead of going on the offensive, the Avestite Inquisition posed no danger,
you could smash everything with the most basic units, AI was moronic, no automatization, etc. etc. etc.

But! The feeling you'd get when you'd drop a fleetload of troops on an enemy homeworld after bombarding the everloving fuck outta it was amazing. Taking the fight to Leagueheim to crush those moneygrubbing bastards is one of my fondest gaming memories. I hope to play it again someday (modded, of course).

https://www.myabandonware.com/game/emperor-of-the-fading-suns-3zx

Edit:
Since Stunts was mentioned... Otto Partz's monocle falling off needs to be seen more often. https://youtu.be/-hKK4_gvOS0?t=414

 

[Crash]

Nice thread

I also can suggest trying Dark Earth. It didn't feel easy for me (I didn't finish it, didn't use walkthrough), but the atmosphere, setting and story is good (it's postapocalyptic, but with tech being quite rare, so no easy gunning down opponents with miniguns).

Shadow Watch was also mentioned here, I can only concur that it is worth playing, I've played many turn-based tactics and I liked SW too. Only thing I didn't like was the actual length (i.e., the lack of it) of the campaign. But the artwork is nice and overall gameplay also felt good.

 

[Binky]

Low Blow (1990)
Another short and simple game. All is fair in love and war boxing. Beat your opponents with skilled combos, attrition, or by kicking them in the balls when the refs ain't lookin'. Your opponents will likewise fight dirty; they'll headbutt you, kick you in the stomach, kick you in the nuts (the champ will straight up bash you with his championship belt). How obscure is this? The community wishlist for this game on gog has three votes. One of them is mine.

https://www.myabandonware.com/game/low-blow-y0

Sub Culture (1997)
You're a tiny underwater freelance mercenary with your very own submarine. You owe it to yourself to play this game. Do it. Do it now!

https://www.myabandonware.com/game/sub-culture-a4n

Rise & Rule of Ancient Empires (1996)

Ah, memories. A valiant attempt to compete with Civilization. The art and music are a delight. No Romans crying, "Canis mortus est!" You can choose between the Celts, Egyptians, Chinese, Greeks, and Mesopotamians (how often do you get to play as Akkadians, I mean seriously?) Want to mass produce units? Great. Expect to feed them. No photosynthetic troops here. Another great thing about the game is the lack of telepathy. Celtic wise men discover the secret of toilet paper and every person in your civ suddenly starts using it? Nope. If you want to build cavalry, your sages must discover how to ride horses. And then your philosophers have to spread this knowledge to other cities in your realm. Unless you want to research the same thing in each and every city you build. The downside? The game very, very quickly becomes tedious as fuck. All that great art, all those great ideas, and yet when it come to gameplay the result is tedium. Shame. Despite its failure it tried to do something new instead of playing it safe.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/rise-rule-of-ancient-empires

 

[Skall]

I also can suggest trying Dark Earth. It didn't feel easy for me (I didn't finish it, didn't use walkthrough), but the atmosphere, setting and story is good (it's postapocalyptic, but with tech being quite rare, so no easy gunning down opponents with miniguns).

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...mbrace-the-darkness.43666/page-5#post-4321607

 

[Astral Rag]

One of my favourite games and it's finally playable on modern OS without having to resort to a VM:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...es-for-thief-and-other-pc-games.90431/page-12

 

[Binky]

Theocracy (2000)
An Age of Empires clone with a twist. Aztecs Atlans uniting other Mesoamerican tribes. Prepare before the Spanish get there.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/theocracy
Crisis in the Kremlin (1991)
The Soviet Union is in trouble! Can you reform/preserve it?

http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/25660/Crisis+in+the+Kremlin.html
Burntime (1993)
The legend. Nukes fell, civilization went belly up. Become master of the wasteland. It kills me how few people know about good ol' Burntime.

http://www.abandonia.com/games/450/burntime
Kgb (1992)
If you are innocent you have nothing to fear! Play as a KGB agent in this adventure.

Spoiler

The atmosphere, by Jove, the atmosphere! Papers, Please has nothing on this game. Paranoia, oppression, poverty, alcoholism, crime,... Welcome to the Soviet Union in 1991. The first part of the game in Moscow is flawless. You investigate the murder of a former Chekist and end up dealing with some very nasty criminals. And to top it off, just about anything you say or do can potentially get you killed, shipped to Siberia, moved to a dead end office job, sent to a crummy border post. After Moscow it sadly turns into yet another spy game with quadruple-crosses, quintuple agents, and the fate of the world Soviet Union depending on you.

It's not all doom & gloom, btw. There's a ridiculous amount of dry humor.

http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/93/KGB+aka+Conspiracy.html

 

[Unkillable Cat]

How would you say the atmosphere holds in KGB, compared to its CD-ROM FMV upgrade, Conspiracy? Same, better, worse?

 

[Binky]

How would you say the atmosphere holds in KGB, compared to its CD-ROM FMV upgrade, Conspiracy? Same, better, worse?

Couldn't say. Didn't play the CD one. Out of curiosity, I checked it it out on Youtube:

Ugh. Yeah, fuck that.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

That's precisely why I asked.

 

[Skall]

I also can suggest trying Dark Earth. It didn't feel easy for me (I didn't finish it, didn't use walkthrough), but the atmosphere, setting and story is good (it's postapocalyptic, but with tech being quite rare, so no easy gunning down opponents with miniguns).

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...mbrace-the-darkness.43666/page-5#post-4321607

Indigo Gaming did a video on Dark Earth recently:



He followed it up by interviewing the game's producer and lore-writer. It's a long video, but they touch upon some interesting elements like those P&P books I mentioned and failed sequels:

 

[Skall]

The interview has timestamped topics if you find the length intimidating, but my favourite tid-bit was an anecdote about working with (at the time) SquareSoft on Dark Earth 2. It was going to be a late PSX title, but eventually got shelved due to business considerations; namely costs and the upcoming PS2. However, Guillaume revealed that there was also some friction with Tetsuya Nomura who was heading up the project on Square's end.

Apparently Nomura was interested in the original's vision...

...but thought they could use a few more colourful creatures (perhaps with some elemental attributes attached?)...

...and was shocked when Guillaume flat out told him "no."

It's probably for the best. After all, Nomura's vision for FFX included...

...and this was his take on Kingdom Hearts' Donald Duck...

Dark Earth 2 did get a cinematic trailer, and its characters were looking decidedly anime-ish:



Too bad the Dark Sun novel was also part of the development deal and therefore never saw the light of day.

 

[AdolfSatan]

Now, I don't know how obscure this might actually be, but forgotten it sure is. I don't ever recall having read about it on forums or the like.

Great Swordsman
FIGHT BATTLES ! !

It's a fencing game. The mechanics are as simple as they get: you have three positions from which to attack or block. You either step forwards or backwards.
Yet it's incredibly fun. The controls are smooth as silk, and the game is divided in three stages following each other after you beat a round of five opponents —modern fencing, japanese kendo, and gladiatoral fights against gods— that change the mechanics of the attacks ever so slightly and increase in difficulty. Not just the AI, but also on the amount of lives: At the first stage it takes five hits to win, two on the second, and only one on the last. You'll be sweating balls by the time it's over, it can become very tense.

 

[Tigranes]

This looks fantastic and I am butthurt we did not get it

 

[Jarpie]

Anyone else remember this? It got good reviews at least on finnish magazines at the time.

 

[Cosmo]

Anyone else remember this? It got good reviews at least on finnish magazines at the time.

Genesia was rereleased on iPad and iPhone, and garnered some pretty good reviews, especially for a game that old...

 

[Arrowgrab]

Anyone else remember this? It got good reviews at least on finnish magazines at the time.

Never played it, but I have to say, the general visual aesthetics and the sound design are so incredibly mid-90s I'm feeling a bout of nostalgia right now.

 

[AdolfSatan]

Anyone else remember this? It got good reviews at least on finnish magazines at the time.

il faut de la roche
vous n'avez pas d'architecte sur ce terrain
il nous faut du bois
vous n'avez pas de matière première
il faut de la roche
vous n'avez pas d'architecte sur ce terrain
il nous faut du bois
vous n'avez pas de matière première
il faut de la roche
vous n'avez pas d'architecte sur ce terrain
IL NOUS FAUT DU BOIS
VOUS N'AVEZ PAS DE

 

[Jarpie]

Anyone else remember this? It got good reviews at least on finnish magazines at the time.

il faut de la roche
vous n'avez pas d'architecte sur ce terrain
il nous faut du bois
vous n'avez pas de la matière première
il faut de la roche
vous n'avez pas d'architecte sur ce terrain
il nous faut du bois
vous n'avez pas de la matière première
il faut de la roche
vous n'avez pas d'architecte sur ce terrain
IL NOUS FAUT DU BOIS
VOUS N'AVEZ PAS DE LA

First video I found from the youtube, didn't look at it more closely :D

 

[AdolfSatan]

Thanks for pointing that out, Ninjerk

Si bien je comprends l'aspect théorique, ça me reste un peu difficile encore de naturalizer l'utilisation de la préposition "de" dans certaines situations.
Même pour certaines autres subtilités comme quand utiliser il/elle/ça et ça...

En tout cas, j'aurais dû prendre plus d'attention au texte original. Ma faute.

 

[Jarpie]

Someone care to translate what AdolfSatan pasted, as I don't speak frog.

 

[AdolfSatan]

Jarpie Oh, it was in answer to that sneaky bastard's rating; you ain't missing out on anything, sorry for the off-topic.

To get back on track: Not ancient or anything (2010), bur certainly a lost jewel from the indie world.
Sutef is as puzzle game that nails down to a t the creepy/edgy atmosphere.

It's short, the puzzles are great, the ambiance is great, and it is free.
https://gamejolt.com/games/sutef/4195

Also, one of the most addictive games ever: fuckin' SkyRoads
Played this one a shitload back in the day. You just go around jumping/evading obstacles. Awesome music. It's set in space. What else could you ever want?

http://www.openroadsgame.com/

 

[Jarpie]

Jarpie Oh, it was in answer to that sneaky bastard's rating; you ain't missing out on anything, sorry for the off-topic.

To get back on track: Not ancient or anything (2010), bur certainly a lost jewel from the indie world.
Sutef is as puzzle game that nails down to a t the creepy/edgy atmosphere.

It's short, the puzzles are great, the ambiance is great, and it is free.
https://gamejolt.com/games/sutef/4195

Also, one of the most addictive games ever: fuckin' SkyRoads
Played this one a shitload back in the day. You just go around jumping/evading obstacles. Awesome music. It's set in space. What else could you ever want?

http://www.openroadsgame.com/

SkyRoads is basically Trailblazer clone.

 

[T. Reich]

Also reminds me of Star Goose a bit:

 

[Morblot]

Also, one of the most addictive games ever: fuckin' SkyRoads
Played this one a shitload back in the day. You just go around jumping/evading obstacles. Awesome music. It's set in space. What else could you ever want?

http://www.openroadsgame.com/

Good game, I used to play this quite a lot back in the day. It's still the only Estonian game I know of.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Good game, I used to play this quite a lot back in the day. It's still the only Estonian game I know of.

Would this game count?

(The author claims not to be Estonian, but he speaks the language.)