This is a hard one because I generally try to play good games these days, and good games either get popularized through word of mouth or Youtubers make video essays about how they were misunderstood at the time. For me, this question is really asking "Hey what weird trash did you find back when you were 10 years old digging through the bargain bin for whatever you could trade two games you finished for."

I think my big picks from the weird trash are The Urbz, which comes from back when they made Sims spinoff games instead of endless DLC, and Ty the Tasmanian Devil, which was a 3D platformer metroidvania that revolved around collecting increasingly elaborate boom-a-rangs. I definitely sunk the most hours into the Urbz, because nothing was more fun to a 10 year old than going around a virtual town flipping people off.

No One Lives Forever

To this day I have no idea why I bought it. And I bought it close to its release date. I would only do that if I had been absolutely obsessed for months with previews and stuff. But I remember none of that.

And still it ended up becoming one of my all time favourites.

Idk, I remember hide-and-go-seek being pretty sick as a kid. I don't often see it mentioned.

Commander Keen might be one of the few old enough not to have been mentioned to me since the internet became well-known.

Also, Squarez.

Two very niche board games from the 70s: "Snit's Revenge" "Lie, Cheat, and Steal"

And an old Avalon Hill wargame: "Wooden Ships and Iron Men"

Hero’s Quest by Sierra (Later renamed to Quest for Glory)

Sid Meiers' Pirates of the Carribean

Lode Runner

Shallow Thought Of The Day: Any game mentioned in this thread twice is automatically someone who didn't read all the comments before posting.

There was this officially licensed Star Trek tabletop starship battle game that I got to play a couple times in the eighties and no one seems to remember it but me. Wish I could find a copy. I remember it being a blast.

I could rattle off a whole list of TRS-80 Model I/III or Apple ][ games that no one has ever heard of, but I'll spare you.

Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters

Descent

Dungeon Keeper

Anno Domini

Each Anno Domini game consists of 336 cards, with a description of a historical event on one side of the card and the year (and sometimes specific date) in which it happened on the other. All Anno Domini games can be played as a standalone item or mixed with some or even all other editions.

In Anno Domini, each player receives nine cards (or fewer, if you want the game to be shorter) and may look only at the descriptions. In turn, players place a card on the table, trying to place their card in chronological order to those already present. Instead of adding a card, a player may claim that the order in which the cards have been placed is incorrect. In this case all cards are turned over and the correct years revealed.

If the order is correct, then the doubting player receives two cards and skips a turn. If the order is incorrect, then the previous player – who accepted the order as correct or made it incorrect through her own placement – receives three cards. The first player with no cards remaining in hand wins.

The Anno Domini game series exist only in German.

If its out of non-mentions it has to be Space Station 13. I hope 14 on Steam catches up soon, been thinking of lending a hand.

The Sexy Brutale!

It's a murder/puzzle game and I really enjoyed it.

Haven't seen it mentioned here, but my favorite game of all time is one that is Rarely mentioned - if ever,

The World Ends With You, originally for the DS, now on Switch.

MC Neku has 7 days to figure out wtf is going on in The Reaper's Game, but he can't remember anything.

Fun combat mechanics, the DS version had you fighting 2 combat encounters at the same time, one on the top screen, and the main one on the bottom screen. The sound track was amazing! I still have multiple soundbytes from that game as ringtones.

Since most games are often mentioned on the internet, I'm going to reach waaaaaaaay back to my childhood and mention Cartooners:

This was a game for kids to make their own cartoons. I spend so much time making all kinds of funny and weird stories. It was very basic, but it had me giggling every time.

Escape Velocity Nova

3D Movie Maker (1995) - Game for Windows 95

Super dodgeball for the NES.

Deceptively simple, but much deeper than it seems on first glance. Each character has 2 different special abilities that change the way you throw. Especially if you can get a few buddies to huddle around the tv with you, will keep you all entertained for hours.

All time biggest time sinks are probably Civilization 2 and Factorio.

Biggest time sink you’ve never heard of is Ancient Dungeons of Mystery, a one-man Roguelike dungeon delving passion project.

Board game: Sheriff of Nottingham, i just love social deception games.

Video game: BETON BRUTAL, 3D platformer with similar parkour like Minecraft, but more polished. Overall pretty chill to sink some time into.

I really like backgammon but no one ever wants to play with me

Jade cocoon 2 for the PS2.

A brilliant mix of tactics and Pokemon. You have a box composed of 8 slots surrounding you, 4 edges of different coolers, and 4 corners that combine 2 colors, you get to pick of 6 monsters to fill those 8 slots, each edge is a different style of move, red is attack, blue is defend, green is heal, yellow is cast, some monsters only have 1 color affiliated with them, some have 3, you select which side/color of box you want to attack your opponent with, if you don't have a monster in the middle of that color they can attach your hit point pool directly.

I rarely see it mentioned, and I think that's a shame, it was very creative for being in a very popular genre

Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow (PC)

I never see Cultist Simulator recommended but it's one of my favorites. It really captures the idea of studying the esoteric arts, and has a surprising amount of world building given how simple the presentation is.

Probably havent player it in ten years but Kirby super star ultra. There is just SO MUCH content. I swear there are like a dozen minigamss and multiple "main games". All on the DS, it's crazy.

Other than that, megaman zero. Great music, tight controls and great story. Its fucking hard of course but super fun.

A game that’s never mentioned on the internet? Probably would have to be something that came on those shareware discs in the 90s then.

I’ll go with the Adventures of MicroMan

Loco roco 1,2,3 on psp. Played the shit out of them when I was a kid

Urban Rivals. No one is talking about that game anymore. It used to be an amazing browser game. By now it's even on steam, but apparently they cut a lot of the animations so the crowd isn't happy about it. The card artworks are cool and the gameplay (was) fun. I don't know if it's still the same, as live games tend to change game mechanics.

Every other game I play('d) is mentioned at least sometimes (once a week).

Even stuff like Gothic, Golden Sun, Ragnarok Online.

Actual recommendations, but bring your friends AND beer:

Super SMASH Tv

Zombies Ate My Neighbors

———————————————

Only if you’re a masochist because you REALLY REALLY like flying through rings then Superman64 is probably the best game there is

Literally any game I like is gonna have me seeking out the Internet community for it. Your question is kinda broken this way.

Castle of the winds.

Tzolk’in is my favorite game, I think. It is a board game that incorporates time in an interesting way for a worker-placement style game.

Bounty Bob on the C64 was goood.

The boardgame Heat is one of my all time favorites. Thunder Road Vendetta is right up there too, and I am waiting to put them together for an all road race/rage saturday with my boardgame peeps.

So I just invented a game.
I kinda like it a bit.
Of course, I'm not going to tell you its name or its rules, or I will have mentioned it on the internet, which will make it a paradox.

Freelancer, very fun space sim that didn't quite seem to get popular enough

I don't know about favorite, but a game I remember playing ball in the Nintendo, super Nintendo days was a game called Another World. Never met another person who has played it except one of it irl friends. Wikipedia claims it's one of the best video games ever made, oddly.

Kind of a platformer, kind of a puzzler, very surreal.

Final fantasy tactics a2.

World in Conflict is one I don't see talked about. Squad based military RTS.

Multiplayer on that was so fun. Guessing how the enemy was moving in order to time how you call ordinance on them was my favorite part

Well that rules out pretty much every video game. So here's my favorite card game instead.

It's called Illimat. It's very strategic but easy to finish a game in under an hour. It's essentially a game of pattern recognition and "harvesting" sets of cards. The goal is to harvest the most points each round.

Fitting into the overall theme of farming, there are four fields to harvest from, and each field is in a different season. Players can change the seasons by playing special cards, and the seasons affect the types of actions that may be performed in each field.

Everyone I've played with has enjoyed this game.

Banana Nababa - like an old 8 bit action platformer, but it's just the bosses

Pioneer
It's open source, and if you're on Linux, it's probably in your repos.
Kinda like a cross between Elite and Kerbal Space Program.

Xcom 2.

A friend recommended it to me because he thought I would like it. It's my favourite game and I have 100% it.

The Incredible Machine! the original Rube Goldberg game. me and my friends played the shit out of it in the 90s. a few years ago i decided to give it a google and i found out that not only were there an expansion i hadn't heard of, there were five other games in the series.

Zillion

Labyrinth!

Each turn you first move one column or row of the gameboard over by one, then move as far as you like along any unobstructed path as you race against other players to collect magiffins in the ever-changing maze.

It's a game that rewards both creative thinking and sabotage. It helps develop strategy and spatial reasoning. It's simple enough for a kindergartner to learn but engaging enough for adults to enjoy even after dozens of games.

My current phone game is ∞ Loop. Just a simple puzzle-type game.

I also like a variety of solitaire card games, but the app I used to like has become quite enshittified, and I haven't found a good replacement.

Majesty.

It's a strategy simulation game, a bit like an RTS, but you can't directly control units.

Instead all units follow general archetypes. Rogues generally won't spontaneously help you but will do most anything for money. Warriors will seek out monsters and lairs that have been discovered. Rangers will explore the map. Units will also do things like buying potions or upgraded equipment based on their class and intelligence.

As the player you choose what buildings to place and can offer rewards for exploring an area or killing something.

There was a sequel, but it's a significantly worse game than the original.

Cultures 2.

Hammershlagen

Double Dare the videogame for the Nintendo Entertainment System

Excluding all games you have seen mentioned by anyone on the internet

Well, shit, that makes my list really, really fucking small.

I guess Clutch? Literally never seen anyone mention it before, cheap carmageddon clone

Gunstar Heroes. It was the first game I ever beat on my Genesis.

Dark Souls 1. The only game I bothered getting all achievements for.

ICO never gets mentioned and is legitimately my #1 all time with Another World a close 2nd that also never gets mentioned

Favorites come and go with the seasons, but objectively, the one game that we have played more than anything in my house is Silver.

We've bought all the expansions and created our own variation of playing with ALL the cards.

Fragile allegiance. Desperately needs a redo with a first person mode and better ui

Favorite is a tough one to pick. There are many games that have genuinely shaped my life, some that I still play consistently, others that hold a dear place in my heart but I'll likely never pick back up for various reasons.

Games that I play all the time and get the most value out of are not necessarily my favorite games. I've been playing the crap out of satisfactory since it's 1.0 release, and it's definitely up there, but it doesn't evoke the same feelings I had when I played Skyrim for the first time, nor do I think it will create formative memories like the Halo, Sly Cooper, or Ratchet and Clank series did for me.

Well shit. I guess I don't have an answer. Sorry.

Thinking about it, reducing my entire game library to not suggested titles anywhere decreases its size drastically. It easily knocks like 20 games I would list normally.

With that said, Last Command was a nice bullet hell game. Would reccomend

Herzog Zwei on the Sega Genesis was one of my favorites back in the day!

Does making a list of all games not on any list count as a game? Also, what happens since that game is now on a list making the original list incorrect?

My actual answer would probably be the old SSI games on Amiga specifically for Death Knights of Krynn or similar, though I don't think they hold up super well (it's 1st ed D&D specifically in Dragonlance and adapted to PCs of the time).

Two gamecube games that I never see discussed anywhere, and no equal sequel has ever released for:

Cubivore & Frolf

I am still so sad to not be an owner of either in a physical capacity :’(

Cogmind! I found that game after I bought Caves Of Qud. Technically it wasn't recommended to me by anyone directly (just found it one day scrolling through Steam). Its an excellent RPG where you play as a self-assembling robot trying to escape from a massive robot colony thing. Haven't gotten super far into the game yet but I absolutely love the gameplay and sound design. Check it out!

Also, NES Open; the greatest golf game ever made in my opinion. I've had it since I was a kid and have never heard anyone talk about it online. Simple gameplay, high skill ceiling. Exactly what a golf game needs to be!

Action Quake 2 - AQ2

An online 90s FPS

--//--

Innovation

Card game - Simplicity and depth, exceptional gameplay. Best at 2P.

I can't answer anything since lemmy is the internet and once I answer whatever I mention will breach the requirement by virtue of me (anyone) mentioning the game on lemmy (the internet).

Anyhow, I learnt about Diablo 2 from my cousins when I was 7 and played it a lot before knowing internet was a thing, does that apply the non fucked up version of your request?

Le fabuleux voyage de l'oncle Ernest (the translation would be Uncle Ernest's Fabulous Journey, but I don't think it's been released outside of France)

I don't remember much of the game but I loved it as a kid, around 9-10.

The game is about the traveling journal of our adventurer uncle: Ernest. From what I remember it's like a virtual treasure hunt, trying to find clues to find our uncle. It's a lot of minigames going through Africa, Istanbul, Borneo ...

Powder by Jeff lait. I think you can get it at a website called zincland or something?

It's an old school roguelike that absolutely slaps, though its gotten significantly harder to play since the wiki stopped being hosted

Ok, any game that I've ever seen mentioned by someone online in my almost 30 years on the internet is going to strike most titles and leave only the ones that are really old, obscure, or both. So, here are a few that I like but can't recall seeing mentioned online other than when specifically looking them up:

• Stunt Island. Airplane sim-like game by Disney studios. Early 90's
• Rocking Cats. Awesome NES platformer that has a really fun take on the genre
• Armadillo Run. Physics puzzle that a friend of mine recommended in the mid 2000s.
• Sacrifice. Weird (the good kind of weird) first person strategy game I pirated once after finding it on an FTP. Fucking amazing game from somewhere in the early 2000s
• A.r.s.e.n.a.l. An RTS from the late 90s. Don't send an attack without fuel trucks!

Legretto

I was introduced to the game by an Austrian woman I dated in my 20s and 25 years later remains at the top of my list of party games.

Ligretto is a card game for two to twelve players. The game in its current form was designed by Michael Michaels and published in 1988 by the German company Rosengarten Spiele. Since 2000 the game has been published by Schmidt-Spiele of Berlin, Germany. - Wikipedia>

Image Fight on NES. It's a top down scrolling shooter where you fly a space ship and pick up new weapons and attachments. I was terrible at it as a kid but I loved it and kept trying to progress further. I've thought about picking up a copy now but just haven't gotten around to it

Tap Ninja: A Idle ninja-slayer game have more than 700 achievement.

Rusted Warfare: A RTS game.

Zortch: A Quake like boomer shooter.

Battlezone 2: Combat Commander. When I started playing that, my brother and I had to face each other and use our laptops' infrared ports.

Quartile

https://simplyfun.com/products/quartile?srsltid=AfmBOop09ABddbZdM5bz8rjCiUxzoa2F35ERKOhxo6exVtLh0V3D2MCD

Closely followed by Mexican train domino

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Train

I haven't seen "The London Game" on the internet; that can be a lot of fun.

Most of the other stuff I like I've seen somewhere or other.

I don't see many people ever really talking about them at all outside of fans, but Krosmaga and One More Gate from Ankama.

Krosmaga is a deck builder autochess like game (with something like 9 or 10 different classes/dieties with different abilities to build around, alongside a bunch of non-specific cards any class could use in their deck). Place summons/spells to protect your Dofus (dragon eggs, to simplify what they are) and destroy theirs. Matchmaking is either play against computer, who randomly selects class and gets default deck, or just flatout random player. Don't think there's any selective matchmaking, sadly.

One More Gate is a short enough roguelite game where you accidentally destroy a portal and have to fix it by beating bosses in new areas, usually after multiple failed runs. Has meta progression, which I personally am not the biggest fan of.

Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising. It's the only game in the Carrier Command-like subgenre of RTS that isn't part of the Carrier Command series. Shockingly well written, too, for what it is.

Gameboy color dinosaur JRPG / metroidvania that seemingly no one else has ever played. Called Dinosaur'us. I had to google the name there and it turns out there is a wikipedia page so it's not totally obscure - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur%27us

I loved this game as a kid! There are surprisingly few good dinosaur games (although admittedly a lot of good dragon ones).

Edit: only ever released in the UK - that explains a lot of why it was so obscure. The ROM is on emulator sites though if you are curious.

Challenge accepted. Does anyone recognize Llamatron: 2112? I played it on Amiga, but I think it was also on Atari and DOS.

It was an acid trip "llamas are funny" parody of Robotron: 2084, and it was a fuckin' BLAST!

Always liked Power Pete, and if you don’t have vertigo, the Descent series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asian_mancala

Zero Tolerance

Airborne Kingdom

Got this game for free through twitch free games which turned out to be a surprising gem for me:

Dead in Vinland - Turn based group survival management game with some exploration and combat mechanics but the real juice of the game is in the writing and character development.

Story overall is ehhhh but it's just a stage for the characters you meet :>

Sorry if you know this game, but I've met plenty of people who haven't and I've never seen it mentioned online until I searched for it today: Contact!

Not a video game but a boardgame called Nightmare

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightmare_(Atmosfear_series)

Slay the dragon.

Go play it. It's worth it.

Edit: I accidentally hit the post comment button, so I might as well add something:

I think I might've mentioned this once before, but The Eternal Castle [REMASTERED] stood out to me for its stylized graphics and animation. Or if you're in the mood for a puzzle game, Temple of Snek might be good to try.

Heres one nobody knows or talks about...

Shootout 3.

When I was about 15 (20 years ago) I made my own game on "Game Maker" and me and my mates had a heap of fun on it... I uploaded it to some old forum somewhere, but long since lost the files/website and am unable to ever play it again :(

Not sure if it's my favourite, but I definitely haven't seen it mentioned on the internet: Kai Chronicles!

It's an app with the entire lone wolf saga CYOA books in digital format, for free, no ads.

Definitely would recommend.

Full Spectrum Warrior.

What a neat game that nobody talks about. It's in the squad level tactical shooter wheelhouse, although it isn't actually a shooter. You take an over-the-shoulder view switching between two (sometimes 3) teams in a squad, directing them through levels. It is sort of like Brothers In Arms, though in a more modern setting, small numbers of people to control, and having to fully rely on your NPCs to kill the enemies. An interesting twist on the squad management genre, it sits somewhere between a tactical management shooter, and a top down management game like Door Kickers.

I really loved a game called "Island: A Game Of Survival" which was loaded onto school computers in my Canadian province during the DOS days.

I really enjoyed Doom 3. Has more of a horror vibe compared to the hack and slash nature of the rest of the series, but I feel its very enjoyable and doesn't feel as old as it is.

Go

The dark pictures anthology: man of medan.

In Sound Mind, a really creative horror game by the makers of the popular "Nightmare House" mod. It has a great atmosphere, an interesting story, regularily goes on sale for 3 bucks, can be bought DRM free on GOG and has a fantastic soundtrack by The Living Tombstone (https://youtu.be/CBIQNiNBbYs ).

Also, there's a cute cat in the game you can pet.

Quest for Glory series. Got me into RPGs.

There was an old card game I learned around 2003ish called Spite & Malice, involving 2 full decks of cards for 2 players. Was just a ton of fun, but it's faded from memory and the ruleset I found online once didn't match the one I played.

I played a game called Mindtrap as a kid, it was a box of different cards with puzzles on them.

The actual game is you played on teams to answer these riddles, but I just looked at the cards and tried solving them. I think they revamped it more recently.

A game that I've never seen mentioned online but I played the shit out of is Metal Fatigue. RTS game with huge robots. Fucking dope

Star Goose

tbf my favorite games ever are the management Kairosoft games. They are simple, no graphics but can be pretty challenging. It has a pretty loyal followers (like me) lol. Not every game is the best but it's an amazing little game to have on your phone

TLL (Tornado Low Level) on the ZX Spectrum was amazing at the time, and Cyclone was a sort of follow up but I don’t know if it was the same developer or anything.

Too many ninjas

Naptunes pride

So... A game that actually isn't my favorite, just the favorite amongst things that I've never seen mentioned anywhere?

Shit... Even the most obscure games I know about, I know about because someone else mentioned them.

I guess I'll have to go with Fightin' Herds? It's one of the few games I have that I bought entirely on the screenshots from the store page and I've never seen anyone mentioned it ever. In the simplest explanation: It's a 2D side scrolling fighting game with animal characters designed by Lauren Faust (the creator of MLP: Friendship is Magic). It's not a very good game. It's extremely cheap and unfair, like way more than any other fighting game I've played. The adventure mode is also kinda shit because it takes the already bad fighting mechanics and makes you do platforming and Smash Bros style horde fights against multiple opponents and the controls just aren't really designed for that shit (up is jump and it doesn't like you trying to jump forward so making what looks like an easy jump is harder than it has to be). I haven't even gotten 25% through the story mode :(

Actually... Matt Muscle should be told about this pile of dogshit for his Worst Fighting Game Ever series... 🤔

7 stud. Hold-em kids can't keep track of the muck.

So if I'm not counting close friends recommending games to me as "mentioned on the internet" probably Crystal Project, according to Steam. Otherwise, we'd need to go back to things that I was told about by family members way back in the day that I both like and haven't seen mentioned online since, which is trickier. Thief The Dark Project, possibly?

If you haven't played Thief: The Dark Project I recommend it and its sequels. Don't play Thief (no subtitle) though, it's AAA garbage.

Tf2 maybe ? Honorable mentions: Tetris, Dwarf Fortress, stormworks, bg3