Excluding all games you have seen mentioned by anyone on the internet, what is your favorite game?

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.

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.

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

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

Sid Meiers' Pirates of the Carribean

Lode Runner

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.

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"

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

Dungeon Keeper

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.

I always find it strange that nobody ever mentions World of Goo

I hate games like that but I couldn't put it down!

Descent

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.

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

Escape Velocity Nova

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

Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters

Super SMASH Tv

Zombies Ate My Neighbors

If you REALLY REALLY like flying through rings then Superman64 is probably the best game there is

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.

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.

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

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

Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow (PC)

The Sexy Brutale!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 :’(

Cultures 2.

Bounty Bob on the C64 was goood.

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

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.

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 ...

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?