Indie Obscure indies that deserve more attention - Updated Jan. 2020

[Deleted Member 16721]

I don't think it's that obscure but The Quest is worth checking out. In short, it's sort of like a turn-based Morrowind. As I said in another thread it's well worth the price and also has a great Android version.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Siralim ( non steam link ) and Siralim2 ( non steam link ) Is it Obscure enough to be mentioned here?

Both are creature taming roguelikes with rpg elements. I enjoyed the 1st more than the second.

 

[V_K]

Thanks. I really need to update the OP sometime, with Bastard Bonds, and Lurking, and this...

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Three Obscure TB RPG titiles.
Going for sale now at https://itch.io/s/6045/ultimate-3-game-pc-rpg-bundle

Its Sacred Blade https://dragongamedesigns.itch.io/sacred-blade

Secrets of the Guild https://dragongamedesigns.itch.io/secrets-of-the-guild

Mines of Grimvale https://dragongamedesigns.itch.io/mines-of-grimvale TB Blobber with grow by use system

I havent tried any of these games but any codex bros have thoughts on these? are they shovelware? or ?

 

[V_K]

I havent tried any of these games but any codex bros have thoughts on these? are they shovelware?

The first two titles are clearly the newest iterations of Savage Bliss etc. Which makes them even more of a scam than shovelware. The third one is more intriguing, but since it's the same dev, I doubt it's of any value. Its interface is identical to Dungeon Master, down to the rune system, and I seem to remeber there was some facelifted DM scenario editor, so they probably plagiarized one of community-built scenarios for it, but I'm not invested enough to investigate. Jaesun may know more about it.

 

[agris]

I havent tried any of these games but any codex bros have thoughts on these? are they shovelware?

The first two titles are clearly the newest iterations of Savage Bliss etc. Which makes them even more of a scam than shovelware. The third one is more intriguing, but since it's the same dev, I doubt it's of any value. Its interface is identical to Dungeon Master, down to the rune system, and I seem to remeber there was some facelifted DM scenario editor, so they probably plagiarized one of community-built scenarios for it, but I'm not invested enough to investigate. Jaesun may know more about it.

paging kieferd20 for unbiased opinionz

 

[V_K]

paging kieferd20 for unbiased opinionz

S/he had at least one alt after discarding this one. Maybe more, I didn't count.

 

[kieferd20]

paging kieferd20 for unbiased opinionz

S/he had at least one alt after discarding this one. Maybe more, I didn't count.

For your misinformed information you are dishing out, Our games are not scams! And I believe you would not know an Rpg if it bit you in the butt! All we try to do is have fun while making them and giving people a little happieness in there's.
Everyone knows how I am we are not out to make a ton of money, and anyone who wants to play the game can always have it for free.

 

[pippin]

you would not know an Rpg if it bit you in the butt!

new codex slogan pls

 

[agris]

you would not know an Rpg if it bit you in the butt!

new codex slogan pls

DarkUnderlord

 

[duanth123]

paging kieferd20 for unbiased opinionz

S/he had at least one alt after discarding this one. Maybe more, I didn't count.

For your misinformed information you are dishing out, Our games are not scams! And I believe you would not know an Rpg if it bit you in the butt! All we try to do is have fun while making them and giving people a little happieness in there's.
Everyone knows how I am we are not out to make a ton of money, and anyone who wants to play the game can always have it for free.

That was frighteningly quick.

 

[V_K]

That was frighteningly quick.

I'm more amused at how the long-dormant thread suddenly came to life after that.

 

[lightbane]

I think this webpage belongs here: https://juegosliberados.blogspot.com.es/

Tons of forgotten, free indies. Some of them might be good, even. The page is in Spanish, but the links are not, so anyone with Intelligence 5+ should be able to navigate with little effort.

 

[V_K]

I think this webpage belongs here: https://juegosliberados.blogspot.com.es/

Tons of forgotten, free indies. Some of them might be good, even. The page is in Spanish, but the links are not, so anyone with Intelligence 5+ should be able to navigate with little effort.

And here I though I knew all the freeware RPGs released back in the day...
Many thanks! If those are finished games, and the web links still work, this might be a small treasure trove.

 

[lightbane]

Tried a few links, they seem to work. Some examples taken from that webpage:

https://interactivefables.itch.io/worldsmith
https://fivearchers.itch.io/tradersroad
http://www.indiedb.com/games/cosmic-zephyr/downloads/cosmic-zephyr-153
https://web.archive.org/web/20090329064107/http://www.youngsmodulus.com/
http://www.vector.co.jp/download/file/win95/game/fh431071.html

Quality may be variable.

 

[V_K]

Finally added Bastard Bonds and Lurking. Bludgeons and Krakens incoming.
Also restructured the OP, ordering games into categories based on release date. Plus added a category for newest additions at the top the list. Those will remain there for a couple of months (or until I can be bothered to edit the OP next), and then moved to relevant categories.

Siralim ( non steam link ) and Siralim2 ( non steam link ) Is it Obscure enough to be mentioned here?

Both are creature taming roguelikes with rpg elements. I enjoyed the 1st more than the second.

Could you give me a more detailed description (but still 1-2 sentences) of those? And tags too, aside from obvious [TB] and [Monster Taming]?

Also, CryptRat, could you give me short descriptions for Epikos and Towers of Twilight? They seem intriguing, but I don't have time to try them out myself. And maybe something to add to my description of Lurking?

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Finally added Bastard Bonds and Lurking. Bludgeons and Krakens incoming.
Also restructured the OP, ordering games into categories based on release date. Plus added a category for newest additions at the top the list. Those will remain there for a couple of months (or until I can be bothered to edit the OP next), and then moved to relevant categories.

Siralim ( non steam link ) and Siralim2 ( non steam link ) Is it Obscure enough to be mentioned here?

Both are creature taming roguelikes with rpg elements. I enjoyed the 1st more than the second.

Could you give me a more detailed description (but still 1-2 sentences) of those? And tags too, aside from obvious [TB] and [Monster Taming]?

Also, CryptRat, could you give me short descriptions for Epikos and Towers of Twilight? They seem intriguing, but I don't have time to try them out myself. And maybe something to add to my description of Lurking?

Siralim:
"Siralim is a Turn based RPG with roguelite elements that allows you to summon and customize hundreds of creatures to fight in First Person battle. Fight your way through randomly generated dungeons and complete randomized quests."

Siralim 2:
"Siralim 2 is a monster catching RPG. Summon and customize hundreds of creatures to fight for you in Turn based battles through endless dungeons. Find rare treasure and use it to upgrade your castle, empower your creatures, craft powerful artifacts, learn new spells, and get the blessings of deities ."

 

[CryptRat]

CryptRat, could you give me short descriptions for Epikos and Towers of Twilight? They seem intriguing, but I don't have time to try them out myself. And maybe something to add to my description of Lurking?

Sure.

Lurking : Unfortunately my experiece with the Ultima series is only starting Ultima 3 & 4 so I can't compare that well, but its strength is definitely a big open world to apprehend, a well crafted quest as big as the world which requires to pay attention to what people say and a lot of more or less secret things to unlock, especially a range of (combat and non combat) spells and songs, once again generally through dialogs. I wouldn't say the mechanisms are deep. Full party creation and fully free character developpement are welcome, and there are a lot of equipement parts and items (bagpipes <3), but these last points are wasted on a finally rather boring directional combat system.
So to me exploration focused games with good world and quest, very good use of the dialog system, many secrets, but bad combat (and limited mechanisms).
Also it's free.

Epikos : this one is really an UFO. A big part of the game is railroaded, unlike Lurking the dialog system is underused (unless I missed many secrets) and there's almost no character customing at all (I mean there's no experience point nor levelling nor any form of character advancement expect from a very low number of special skills to find, and no equipement or so) but despite these aspects it's still a very charming game : the (pregenerated) characters you play are cool, interesting and mysterious, the game is sometimes dark, sometimes charming and sometimes humourous, the writing is good overall, and there are multiple endings. The world is interesting in a narrative sense in this one. Besides the game makes very good use of the Ultima system of combat where you can only do one action per turn (including walking only one case further each turn) with skills and monsters which are inventive and appropriate. It's a somewhat short game (10 hours or so).
So to me good story and surprisingly fun combat but lacking in the character customing and advancement departments and not really impressive in the exploration side.

Towers of Twilight : the game is a procedurally generated RPG, some mix between a party-based roguelike and games such as Mount & Blade. You start with 3 characters whose classes you choose, and you're looking for 3 relics needed to kill the big villain, and to do that you'll roam from towns to towns spread into the 5? worlds looking for equipement and new party members. There are multiple ways to persuade NPCs to join your team, for example finding one special item they're requesting, dueling them or freeing them from a dungeon. Your team can become very large. The combat system is good, it's a derivative from your classic blobber combat with at least two interesting twist, first bad weather (depending on the world) can proves fatal and is very important to take into account, sometimes you're fleeing an easy battle because you'd lose too much life because of the blizzard, secondly you can take advantage of your number : there's a "tactical advantage" score that you gain via making some of your characters maneuver instead of doing another action, and gaining some tactical advantage is priceless since for example it can prevent a group of dragons from using their breath, making them a lot weaker. Now you're roamming in the map, but enemy groups are too, they'll attack and capture towns, your log is always full of different's enemies' actions.
If I remember right it's said to be unfinished, but to me it's not unfinished, it definitely doesn't look like an half game, is not bugged nor anything like that, I think it only means that the guy wanted to implement additional mechanisms and never did but nothing more.
I don't know how I'd sum up that, but basically procedurally generated party-based turn-based RPG with interseting (combat and non-combat) mechanisms in particular on the AI part.
This one's also free.

Sorry if everything is confuse or even unreadable.

EDIT : Towers of Twilight is not free anymore, or was it never free? Anyway, it's only 99 cents.

 

[V_K]

EDIT : Towers of Twilight is not free anymore, or was it never free? Anyway, it's only 99 cents.

It's free on the sinister systems site (which states it's an alpha version) but not on itch.io (which has no such disclaimer). Does that mean the version on itch.io is the final release? charon_sin_sys ?

 

[V_K]

Siralim, Towers of Twilight, Epikos, Bludgeons and Krakens and Hellenica are finally all in the OP. Seems like 2016 was a bad year for mainstream RPGs but a good year for obscure indies.
I've also gone rogue and added Goetia - it doesn't really qualify as a hybrid, but has certain RPG-like elements (character power-ups, alternative solutions that rely on said power-ups, open exploration) and is too good to be so obscure.
It's my thread after all.

 

[jungl]

^ bludgeons and krakens is dopest of those

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYC-ydZuUVM

 

[Kaldurenik]

So i'm looking for a game with a some what decent story, CC if possible but not a requirement. Are there any games like that around that are not the more main stream releases?

 

[EnthalpyFlow]

So i'm looking for a game with a some what decent story, CC if possible but not a requirement. Are there any games like that around that are not the more main stream releases?

Forgive my ignorance, what does CC means?

 

[Kaldurenik]

So i'm looking for a game with a some what decent story, CC if possible but not a requirement. Are there any games like that around that are not the more main stream releases?

Forgive my ignorance, what does CC means?

choices and consequences
sorry

 

[V_K]

So i'm looking for a game with a some what decent story, CC if possible but not a requirement. Are there any games like that around that are not the more main stream releases?

C&C-heavy games are maked with [C&C] tag on the list.
If you're looking for something like PS:T or BaK, i.e. story-heavy and with many detailed dialogs, you're probably out of luck here.
Lurking is said to be akin to Ultima 5 in its investigation-focused plot structure, but I've only started playing it and can't attest to the depth of the plot.
Bastard Bonds and Voidspire Tactics have interesting and original stories, but their plots are rather minimalistic and exploration-focused.
Dustbowl has a good adventure-style story, but it's barely an RPG.