A short little puzzle platformer: Leap Year. To complete the game, collect all of the calendar pages scattered throughout the level. But beware, there’s fall damage. While your jump is two blocks high, you can only survive a one block fall. There’s more to it, but spoilers…

Supercow originally released in 2005 or something.

Re released: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1883570/Supercow/

I discovered totally by accident Proverbs.

Proverbs is a picross/minesweeper hybrid featuring a single ENORMOUS puzzle, inspired by Bruegel the Elder's 1559 painting "Netherlandish Proverbs".

In short, it's minesweeper with a twist. It's pretty relaxing, you can do it while listening to podcasts or YouTube. Also, what I like is that you never have to make hypotheses. Everything is solvable just by looking.

F2P (not gacha) but pretty good imo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/802930/The_Rainsdowne_Players/

A Family of Gravediggers

No More Mages is a very short (for now) but also very inexpensive (for now) beat-em-up platformer in early access that was made by a fellow lemming. He made it known to me in a comment a few months back, I picked it up, finished it quickly, but definitely felt it had been worth tossing a couple of dollars at a fellow Fediverse user for! I’m looking forward to what happens with it in the future.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3392510/Zexion/

A neat metroidvania with a built in randomizer.

If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers - left my favourite for last, a free pixel art PnC horror adventure with beautiful graphics and great writing. I was so blown away that a game of such high quality was free, that I ended up buying the supporter pack :)

Ring Runner: Flight of the Sages - I remember enjoying the writing in this one, as well as quite detailed ship customization. A weird lil shmup RPG, not even sure what to compare it with. A slow burner for sure though, give it some time to open up. Also on Steam, but seems like it's restricted in some regions there.

The Dweller - you are the eldritch monster hidden in the ruins, hunting down archaeologists, mechanically a puzzle-platformer (may have served as the inspiration for Carrion)

Nantucket. You're Ishmael and you're finishing the job, no matter how many whales you need to butcher. With cards and dice. And sea shanties.

Bound by Flame is an old, rather difficult, action RPG with an interesting premise: you’re transforming into a demon and the player’s actions determine how much you change.

Edit: messed up the name, it’s flame not blood.

As a separate comment: Iji

Freeware game and an awesome gem. Great soundtrack, too

Void Collector

It's a fast-paced fps game where your goal is to speedrun through each level. The main mechanic is that you switch weapons by flipping fingers up and down to change hand gestures. The movement and shooting are very smooth, and the soundtrack is incredible.

Also, Hylics and Hylics 2

They're jrpgs that are very surreal and trippy. They both have amazing style and presentation, and the second game has one of my all-time favorite soundtracks

ODDCORE (939 Steam reviews, Early Access)

Roguish boomer FPS where you travel to liminal spaces to shoot all the monsters. They're not scary if they're dead! Instead of having a map of encounters, you get 5 minutes to do as much as possible. Once you've cleaned out a space, you jump to the next world... unless your teleport gun glitches out and takes you someplace very weird. At any time, even during combat, you can jump to your home base to buy upgrades or extra time credit.

Just bought Cleared Hot, it's a fun little indie helicopter game ala the old Strike games.

The Dream Machine - point and click quest made of clay and cardboard.

I've been playing Idols of Ash and Echo Point Nova.

Both are pretty nifty, don't usually see much conversation about either.

Cyber Hook. 1st person grappling hook 3D platforming speed runner with an 80s retro futurism aesthetic.

Please Fix The Road

Please Fix The Road is a colorful, minimalistic, laid-back and casual puzzle game in which it's probably not hard to guess... you're fixing roads!

I'm recommending it solely for level transitions. 🤷‍♂️

Overload

Spiritual successor to Decent 1, 2, and 3. Made by the same devs.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/448850/Overload/

I think the only really obscure game I've played where I have significant playing time is: Nation Red.

It's an enjoyable little zombie twin-stick shooter / bullet hell game.

Another decent one is Deathtrap. It's a tower defense game with a gothic/dark soulsy aesthetic.

Endless Ages - you won't find it on steam

Oh, thought of another one to list here: Micro Mages. It's not just NES styled game, but an actual NES game with a emulation wrapper around it for Steam. You actually get a NES ROM when you buy the game that's playable in all the emulators I've thrown it into. I've actually got a copy of the rom on my 3DS.

The real interesting thing that the devs put out a video about the challenges of fitting their game onto a NES cart (which is actually how I found out about the game). While the game is kinda small, (I think... I haven't actually beaten it) it's well worth the current sale price 99 cents.

Cinders - a low-fantasy exploration of the story of Cinderella, as a non-anime visual novel with many decisions and endings

Skator Gator 3D:

While looking for the link, I found out it's a sequel... but it's game where you play as a gator going through short-ish 3D levels in order to get your stolen swamp deed back.

Rad Venture ( just a demo ):

For a demo, it requires a LOT of storage ( ~13GB ). It's a demo with a ton of exoloration to be had in an open environment. But basically you play as a green Rayman like lizardy dude named Rad and go around finding collectable mcguffins. The start to the demo was a little constricting because it puts you in a tutorial-esque situation with a lot of invisible walls, but after that section, there's quite a bit to explore. Good idea to turn settings down on a normal LCD Steam Deck. Figured that ine out real quick.

Kila Flow:

It's a fast paced 3D platformer. You play as some sort of antivirus program cresture and you can jump on enemies to disinfect or do something like a standard spin attack. There's rewards for beating a level quick, not taking damage, and for defecting and leaving all enemies alone. Pretty fun platforner, IMO.

Not sure if this qualifies for the thread but on my phone, I've been playing Afterplace. It's a Zelda-like designed for portrait playing. Great little time sink.

Knytt Underground - lovely little metroidvania by Nifflas. I expect some people to know this one, but it does have only 226 reviews on Steam and deserves more. Bundling this one with Ynglet - another game by him (and some other devs)

Slipways

Space-themed strategy puzzle game.

Voin is a first person hack and slash with very satisfying combat and movement. It has some nice build variety and huge, detailed levels. The game is still in early access, but as it's being made by a solo developer, that's the only way to make a project like this feasible.

Eh, I guess I toss out one of my favorite DS games as a break from my previous Steam recommendations, so Retro Game Challenge 2, the fan translation of GameCenter CX: Arino no Chōsenjō 2. This actually may get downvoted a fair bit, because the Game Center CX show that inspired the game has a dedicated cult following in the United States and Retro Game Challenge 2 has been played by some fairly big streamers.

Anyway on to the game itself. Retro Game Challenge 2 is a collection of NES and SNES styled mini games loosely bound together by a fairly non-nonsensical meta plot and a ton of nostalgia. You're assigned "challenges" for the various games that you have to beat, think NES Remix if you've played that, it's actually from the same developer. But not only that there's a ton of nostalgic little touches, all the mini-games have in game "manuals" to read, there are also in game "gaming magazines" that offer tips and tricks for the games you play, as well as hinting about "up-coming" games. There's also a "daily challenge" which is a... well challenge that is issued daily, with difficulty that ramps up as you beat them.

The best part of the whole game/micro games is that you can freely play them after they've been unlocked. None of the NES Remix's "We've got the whole game here, but you can't do anything but the challenges" bullshit. You want to play though the entirety of the ten-ish hour NES styled JRPG? Go for it. Indieszero also included some "challenge mode" versions of games from the first Retro Game Challenge game.

Anyway, as the wall of text may have clued you in, I really like this game.

Aero GPX - Really fast SciFi themed racing game. Very much inspire by the F-Zero series.

A game I like and I never see mentioned anywhere is Out of Space it's similar to Overcooked except a lot less chaotic.

Bionic dues

Echo an rough diamond with a unique sci-fi story. A nice thrilling puzzle-ish game. It can become abit repetetive. But the story is nice and mysterious enough to keep you engaged and the mechanics are cool enough to keep you on your toes. And for GoT fans the main character is voiced by Leslie Rose. EDIT: dumb typos

Plain Sight - These flying ninja robots fight each other in. Fast paced and fun.

Qbeh-1 The Atlas Cube: If you like puzzels, chill floating islands and minecraft (-90%).

The Council: An episodic narrative adventure in 18th century high society. (-90%)

Let's see how many people know about Bloodthief.

Insanely unique concept. You gather blood and use it to fuel hyper fast parkour movement and combat. Everything is a one hit kill, everything is insanely slick. It feels really good to play, and I don't even normally like this style of game.