Discussion small games you randomly stumbled on that turned out to be absurdly massive

[Revolsin]

so i was just browsing steam and this game popped up, "Son of the Forest" and im like okay some neat recent indie title lets check it out

and then i land on this

and it's like what the actual fuck. how have i never even heard of this. doesn't this level of reviews imply this sold millions? like huh

i've seen this happen before too. i dont know just these random tiny games that end up having massive followings out of nowhere

 

[Metroid]

I try to be tuned in so this situation rarely happens for me, but most recently 2 years ago the Room 4 opened my eyes to the series and to escape room games in general

 

[Irene]

I certainly wasn't aware of the massive Undertale fandom and audience when I first played it. I legit thought it was a super obscure indie game. Then I found out later that there was this enormous, bizarre and mystifying movement behind it.

 

[Revolsin]

I try to be tuned in so this situation rarely happens for me, but most recently 2 years ago the Room 4 opened my eyes to the series and to escape room games in general

it always makes me wonder like what triggered the massive jump for people. cause it would have to be some of kind of big word of mouth thing, i doubt these small indie companies advertise much

 

[Metroid]

it always makes me wonder like what triggered the massive jump for people. cause it would have to be some of kind of big word of mouth thing, i doubt these small indie companies advertise much

The algorithm and zeitgeist works in mysterious ways.

 

[paranoodle]

I certainly wasn't aware of the massive Undertale fandom and audience when I first played it. I legit thought it was a super obscure indie game. Then I found out later that there was this enormous, bizarre and mystifying movement behind it.

Same, I played it around launch because an indie dev I followed at the time went "hey someone I know is releasing this and you should give it a try! I swear it's good!" and I had no idea not only how big its launch already was, nor how it'd go on to be one of the (if not the) largest indie games ever made, haha.

 

[Nmanic]

Celeste. I knew nothing about it until they were guests on... I think Nintendo Power? I played it on a whim and not only did it blow up, but it became one of my favorite indie games ever. It was also super helpful in getting me through intense anxiety I was dealing with my senior year of college. Personally, it was life changing.

 

[BotenAnna]

it always makes me wonder like what triggered the massive jump for people. cause it would have to be some of kind of big word of mouth thing, i doubt these small indie companies advertise much

It's generally some kind of viral thing. The Forest is a pretty good example, I remember the game launching and being relatively small but it had some attention on Youtube/Twitch at the time. They kept supporting it, and it kept gaining traction as larger groups of YT/Twitch people would all group play it together. 9 years of Steam sales, updates, and groups buying it cause it's popular in the multiplayer/content sphere will do that. It also stayed in the steam top sellers at various points for that decade which def helped.

This is the sequel game to all of that happening and is cashing in on hard on people going from the previous one. It's a pretty common way to have a game blow up out of control (see Amogus). Undertale blew up a bit differently since it's not MP, but streams/LPs(these were still a thing in 2015 I swear) helped a lot. Tumblr fandom for that game hit critical mass which leaked out to the general consciousness lol

 

[Gingerbread Man]

This is a free game for PC.

It's fun! An excellent little pirate platform game with a parrot.

Then it turns into Wind Waker. Literally.

Then it turns into a Metroidvania.

Then you find a lot of little self-contained set pieces.

 

[Stilt Village]

Celeste. I knew nothing about it until they were guests on... I think Nintendo Power? I played it on a whim and not only did it blow up, but it became one of my favorite indie games ever. It was also super helpful in getting me through intense anxiety I was dealing with my senior year of college. Personally, it was life changing.

I had a similar experience, played it on a whim during a car trip because the Switch was less than a year old and still building its library at the time, so I would just sort of grab random games off the eshop that people were recommending. And then I was totally absorbed with it the whole way, and over time there was this gradual realization of "wait, this is one of the greatest platformers ever made". It had probably just come out, because it definitely hadn't built that reputation yet when I played it.

 

[Bobo]

I certainly wasn't aware of the massive Undertale fandom and audience when I first played it. I legit thought it was a super obscure indie game. Then I found out later that there was this enormous, bizarre and mystifying movement behind it.

Similarly I heard about it first through The Co-Optional Podcast and played it solely on their recommendation alone. I had no idea about any fandom associated with it until much later

 

[GamerJM]

Not really the same thing, but I played Undertale before it blew up, but like, not because I knew Toby Fox from the EarthBound fandom or was anticipating it before release. A couple of my friends just gave it the most glowing praise I had ever heard days after it came out and the games they compared it to make me compelled to buy it at its relatively cheap price.

 

[Stephen 776]

Trails in the Sky.

Boyfriend got me into it like back when it was just a PSP game with no sequel in sight. He told me to wait until Summer 2014 Fall 2015 for SC, but once I started I haven't stopped playing Kiseki.

I feel the series has some clout that I don't know if it's still considered small, but back in 2011, it was basically an unknown quantity.

 

[Narroo]

I certainly wasn't aware of the massive Undertale fandom and audience when I first played it. I legit thought it was a super obscure indie game. Then I found out later that there was this enormous, bizarre and mystifying movement behind it.

I believe that Toby Fox found a wish granting genie. Or something like that.

 

[Sturmgeist]

Binding of Isaac, both in game size and fandom. My wife bought it for me randomly one Father's Day. I knew nothing about the game going into it. Six years later it is my most played video game of all time at 1,500 hours