Did you ever randomly discover a video game gem? \ stacker news ~gaming

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Did you ever randomly discover a video game gem?

1829 sats \ 18 comments \ @stack_harder 26 Jan gaming

Ok, how many of you ever randomly discovered a video game gem, purely by chance?

These days with so much gaming content, it's hard to randomly and organically discover anything. Back in the day, me and all my friends would buy gaming mags and would be well aware of what was coming too.

But there were chances to find a random gem via the video game stores (usually based on the box art)

For me, the only time I found one totally randomly was thanks to my uncle. He always had a ton of bootleg stuff, from bootleg VHSs back in the day to CDs, he was a bit like Del Boy (not sure the US equivalent).

Anyway, one day i was in his office on the computer and found a box of his pirate PC games and one of them happened to be the Curse of Monkey Island. i popped that sucker in and was immediately in love - the art style, the voice acting, and the stilly dialogue.

Sadly, because of it being a bootleg it would freeze at the same point over and over again and I couldn't get very far (not even off the ship), so later I got the proper version and to this day Monkey Island is still my favourite point and click and Curse is still my favorite graphics style.

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51 sats \ 0 replies \ @catdaddysoprano 27 Jan

Is it cliche to say Outer Wilds because Outer Wilds

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @mudbloodvonfrei 26 Jan

Check out abandonia It's basically a directory for abandonware games. Full of gems.

49 sats \ 2 replies \ @SimpleStacker 26 Jan

Every once in a while I find something while browsing GOG that turns out to be really good. I found TIS-100 this way

30 sats \ 1 reply \ @stack_harder OP 26 Jan

nice, had never heard of GOG before

32 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 26 Jan

Yep, one of my favorite platforms to buy from. I prefer them over Steam unless it's a game that I expect to want mod support for (Steam usually has better mod support through Steam Workshop)

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @krispy_donkey 26 Jan

Funnily enough not really, I have always been into video games and usually do at least some research before buying a game. One big exception I can think of is when I purchased Vanquish on a whim simply because it was so cheap, and it went on to become one of my favourite games of all time.

44 sats \ 1 reply \ @Aardvark 26 Jan

I watch YouTubers that play small indie games like https://youtube.com/@retromation?si=cr7klF-nEnSp09yF

So I find quite a few.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @stack_harder OP 26 Jan

i love that guy has made a whole channel of finding and reviewing indies. quite a lot of subs too.

last indie gem i played was the steam world games, i saw some youtube reviews first though so don't know if i can count it as pure serendipity.

today i did happen to see there was a power rangers game called ritas rewind that recently dropped and none of the gaming channels i watch mentioned it. i was a huge PR fan as a kid so for me this was a mini discovery

43 sats \ 0 replies \ @7e6e393a56 26 Jan

I remember when I bought this game, I had no expectations, but I was surprised by the quality of the gameplay and the story. I think the fans are trying to make a remaster