To help give love to some games I think are underrated, here’s a list of my favorite games with 4,000 reviews or less on steam under $25 ranked by my personal play time.

Neo scavenger $15

Post apocalyptic survival sim, that reminds me a tiny bit of Oregon Trail. There’s a good chance a scratch will kill you, and finding a plastic bag so you can carry more than what you hold in your two hands makes you feel OP. I’ve put 74 hours into this game, have died and restarted countless times, and have hardly gotten anywhere in it, but it’s exactly my kind of survival game

Fae tactics $20

Turn-based grid combat reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics, with just a splash of pokemon. The mechanics and setting I found really fun, although the difficulty can fluctuate a good bit at times.

Xenonauts $25

If OG XCOM went more crunchy than streamlined, it’d be Xenonauts instead of Firaxis’s Enemy Unknown. The combat gives you a ton of control during combat, specifying how much time they should spend aiming before shooting, specific hours of overwatch, crouching, etc.

Star Renegades $25 (currently $5)

Roguelike turn based party RPG. It doesn’t do a crazy amount that’s new or novel, but it executes very well, and lining up a good combo with your build feels amazing.

Rogue Book $25

Slay the Spire with some smart additions. Instead of one hero, you play two, which gives some extra possibilities to mix and match between runs. Instead of an overmap with a couple branching paths, there’s a hex overworld where you can use resources to reveal tiles.

Wildfire $15

Avatar the Last Airbender as a 2d stealth action game. The level layouts are great, and the ability upgrades strike a good balance between being impactful and not trivializing encounters.

Don’t Escape: 4 Days to survive $15

A classic point and click adventure, except using human logic instead of insane Game Logic. Reminds me of a bunch of similar games I played at the height of Newgrounds. It’s a tight, solid experience that doesn’t over stay its welcome.

Alina of the Arena $15

What if Slay the Spire had a hex grid system? I’ve seen other games ask this question, but Alina is the best I’ve played. There are some really clever design decisions they’ve made where certain builds very intuitively form some classic archetypes.

Shardpunk $14 (currently $10)

Roguelike XCOM themed as a crystalpunk version of Vermintide. Combat is solid, but the theme of running to the exit while shooting rats on the way with crystal powered machine guns sets it apart for me.

The Case of the Golden Idol $18

This one breaks my “4,000 or less” review rule by a little bit, so I’m putting it at the bottom, but it is one of my favorite games. I understand the love for Obra Dinn, but Golden Idol is better in my opinion. Each myself is a scene more or less frozen in time, which you can click on things for clues as what’s happening. What sets it apart is how you really do need to solve the mystery to progress; the game doesn’t walk you into it nor really lets you brute force it. Hands down the best mystery game I’ve ever played.