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[Grendus]

Wind Warrior. 1, 2, and 3 I'm afraid. And all three were horrible, I was just too young to notice.

Geneforge probably doesn't count, since it's one of the more mainstream indie titles, but those games were a lot of fun.

Edit: Someone mentioned the Castle of the Winds games earlier in this thread. I tried to play them a little while ago, but because they were compiled in 16 bit rather than 32 or 64 bit my Windows 7 x86 computer won't open them. Windows has a free emulator... if you have Windows 7 professional, I have home premium. Anyone know of a program, short of finding an old copy of windows 3.1 and using DOSBox, that will run a 16 bit program on a 64 bit os?

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Omega. You designed tanks and wrote AI for them, then pitted them against the game's stock tanks. I was young at the time so I don't know first hand how popular it was, but the gameplay involves actual programming so it couldn't have gone too far. It was for the Amiga.

Darn. And here I hoped I could mention something really obscure. Yes, I also know the Omega experience from C64 and IBM compatible.

The worst thing is that I never found a game that was quite like Omega - I really loved the idea behind it. And it really had a manual to take into your hand :) :) :) :)

I guess quite a few of the things I have played in recent years are obscure for most people by virtue of never having anything but a Japanese version, but I somehow feel that that doesn't count - or does it?

Deathworks

EDIT: At least here in Germany, I don't think Obscure is obscure - it has been in most budget shelves for months in many normal stores.

[Draco18s]

But Amorphous+ was so awesome, and it's still one of the highest-rated games, or at least it was the last time I checked. 

It is the 25th highest rated game at a 4.33.

All of the Sonny games, all of the Gemcraft games, Protector 4 (I'm sick of the series, I didn't even try this one--hell, I don't even remember there BEING a #3), Bloons TD 4, Mastermind: World Conqueror, and several others are all rated better and are more terrible.

[olemars]

Upgrade Complete is rated 3rd, and isn't even a game.

Kongregate was good once. It was a neat place to find new and creative flash games, but the last year or so it's been mostly variation over hopelessly worn out themes.

[kg333]

Edit: Someone mentioned the Castle of the Winds games earlier in this thread. I tried to play them a little while ago, but because they were compiled in 16 bit rather than 32 or 64 bit my Windows 7 x86 computer won't open them. Windows has a free emulator... if you have Windows 7 professional, I have home premium. Anyone know of a program, short of finding an old copy of windows 3.1 and using DOSBox, that will run a 16 bit program on a 64 bit os?

Windows 7 has a built in Virtual XP mode that might be worth a shot...other than that, yeah, getting an old copy of Windows 3.1 and any of the popular "virtual box" software should work.  I'm not familiar with Castle of the Winds, but if it runs under DOS at all, DOSBox should be able to handle it, even if it's 16-bit.

KG

[Draco18s]

Upgrade Complete is rated 3rd, and isn't even a game.

Kongregate was good once. It was a neat place to find new and creative flash games, but the last year or so it's been mostly variation over hopelessly worn out themes.

Upgrade Complete was social commentary on games, Kongregate, and its users.

"1/5 for no upgrades" is really common.  As is "5/5 for nice upgrades!"

[Singularity125]

(...hmph. Don't know why my old account claimed it no longer existed...)

Anyways, I always had ADD when it comes to video games. Still do, which explains why I don't play DF all that much. >.>

But I think the most obscure one I've played for any small length of time would be "Inside World". An old, not that great, likely indie game that was thrown onto such "1000 games" cd I had way back when.  It was a bit notable I suppose for switching between top-down and 3d modes of play. Good luck finding it anywhere now though, or playing it if you do find it. It was optimized for windows 3.1, and it shows.

As for commercial games people might actually have heard of... Master of Magic is good fun, and is on abandonia. Magic Carpet was interesting too, and I think someone mentioned it early in the thread. There's a couple like those games on Microsoft's entertainment packs (Skifree, anyone?  ). I could go on and on, but I won't. That oughta be enough obscure references for you. Those are all PC games, and probably all abandonware if you care to look, but I never got that far with any of them. Like I said, ADD.

[Draco18s]

I just got pointed at Genecraft.

My god, I have not encoutered anything quite like this game.  And it lacks an autosave--I think--and its really easy to die if you're not careful (the first things you fight do 2-10 damage.  You have 15 hitpoints, tops.  I ran into four of them at the same time).

[Grendus]

Edit: Someone mentioned the Castle of the Winds games earlier in this thread. I tried to play them a little while ago, but because they were compiled in 16 bit rather than 32 or 64 bit my Windows 7 x86 computer won't open them. Windows has a free emulator... if you have Windows 7 professional, I have home premium. Anyone know of a program, short of finding an old copy of windows 3.1 and using DOSBox, that will run a 16 bit program on a 64 bit os?

Windows 7 has a built in Virtual XP mode that might be worth a shot...other than that, yeah, getting an old copy of Windows 3.1 and any of the popular "virtual box" software should work.  I'm not familiar with Castle of the Winds, but if it runs under DOS at all, DOSBox should be able to handle it, even if it's 16-bit.

KG

Unfortunately, CotW only runs in windows, not DOS. XP mode emulates 64 bit windows XP without XP's backwards compatibility mode. Irritating really.

[Singularity125]

Unfortunately, CotW only runs in windows, not DOS. XP mode emulates 64 bit windows XP without XP's backwards compatibility mode. Irritating really.

True. However, with the right know-how (and looking on the Dosbox forums) it's possible to run Windows 3.1 from within Dosbox. So, he's technically correct, though I've heard it's a rather tricky setup.

[HonkyPunch]

Well, there was this one time I made a game with an opera music soundtrack.
No one else ever played it because I deleted it instantly after playing it.
Most.
Obscure.
Game.
Ever.
:O

[Draco18s]

Well, there was this one time I made a game with an opera music soundtrack.
No one else ever played it because I deleted it instantly after playing it.
Most.
Obscure.
Game.
Ever.
:O

Games you've made yourself don't count.  Especially if they never leave your computer.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Actually, obscurity is somewhat difficult to assess. For instance, is Dwarf Fortress obscure? I don't know.

And obscurity also varies from person to person. For instance, I came across a Japanese person who created a simple dungeoneering simulation game (using text displays) which was a lot of fun (勇者百年計画). When talking to him, I found to my surprise that he was totally unaware of the commercial GeoConflict series (The old catalogue page on Vector - they no longer sell it, it seems). We talked about that because he mentioned that he liked the idea of such a simulation and never had seen any game incorporating that.

This makes me wonder about games like Lunatic Dawn - Passage of the Book or Tir-nan-og which both have randomly generated worlds for roleplaying (links go to catalogue pages for your information; those are commercial games and not freeware, and the link is only for illustration not advertisement).

Deathworks

[nichaey]

Would pax galaxia be considered obscure?, because I still play it online

[HonkyPunch]

Well, there was this one time I made a game with an opera music soundtrack.
No one else ever played it because I deleted it instantly after playing it.
Most.
Obscure.
Game.
Ever.
:O

Games you've made yourself don't count.  Especially if they never leave your computer.

In that case, my friend made a game in Q-basic called Turtle Love. It's a life sim for turtles, i think he put it on the internet somewhere.
:O
But as for commercial games, I'm really not sure I can think of anything.