Not OP but I read RockPaperShotgun (RPS) and participate in gaming forums like resetera, those are my main sources for recommendations. Right now resetera has a pretty good discussion about hidden gems in the steam sale [0]. You can also ask about recommendations in your favorite genres.

Steam algorithm is also pretty good after you have played and reviewed a few indies.

[0] https://www.resetera.com/threads/steam-summer-sale-2023-hidd...

Looking through Steam sales for sub-$10 titles with "Very Positive" or "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews is a good filter.

Some of my favorites over the years include Slay the Spire, Celeste, Vampire Survivors, and FTL.

Edit: How can I forget the "holy trinity" of mystery indie games? Return of the Obra Dinn, Outer Wilds, and Her Story. These are brilliant games that really make you feel like a detective.

The makers of FTL have another game, Into The Breach, and it is available on iOS for free with Netflix.

It's also only $7.50 on Steam right now

Can vouch for this game, it’s super fun.

So many hours spent playing FTL. I was against getting Netflix subscription (we already had 3 streaming apps) until one day I noticed Into the Breach is available on mobile if you have a Netflix subscription. Can't believe I'm subscribing to a streaming service to play an indie game (wife turns out enjoy Netflix though).

I thoroughly enjoyed FTL and Into the Breach.

Another I thoroughly enjoyed was Jupiter Hell, which seems to be a fast paced game, but is actually a very thought provoking, turn based game.

If you haven't tried it, play The Case of the Golden Idol. I liked it as much as Return of the Obra Dinn and it was one of my GOTY last year.

This. And if you like detective games try Shadows of Doubt too. A persistent city with ongoing crimes and full relationships among all citizens.

I adore Return of the Obra Dinn, but didn't quite enjoy the madlibs aspect of The Case or the Golden Idol. However, it isn't necessarily a bad game and it did scratch the Obra Dinn itch a bit.

I loved playing Outer Wilds but boy did it make me car sick, had to give it up because I could only play 20 minutes then feel sick.

Thankfully, it's a game that lends itself well to 22 minute play sessions

I wish I could play Outer Wilds again. That's up there as one of my all time favorites. Obra Dinn was phenomenal as well. I haven't heard of Her Story, but if you're putting it in the same league as those 2, then I'll have to try it out! It's also only $0.99 on Steam right now.

> I wish I could play Outer Wilds again

There's a rather extensive DLC to play through as well in case you haven't seen it. A bit different, but really well made too.

Yes, that was also incredible. I appreciated that it was very different from the main game.

Sibling answers are good but if you want to go deep, twitter/game dev mastodon is a great place. I try to follow anything that looks or sounds interesting, though it often takes years before actual release.

Honestly, steam. I look at steam queue occasionally, I also look at "similar to this" section on a game I played (store page). I search for tags of things I like, I also use the steam experiments (although most of them are integrated) and I make a point of looking at all games on discounts when there are "festivals" in the dedicated festival page. Then world of mouth.

I also make a point of grabbing stuff only when positive rating is 90% or more (recent) and of things that have at least ~5000 reviews or more. There are exceptions obviously, but this helps a lot to trim down the things I don't love, my backlog is already infinite.

I can give you a list of my favorites if you want and you can trim down. As I said, world of mouth!

Here and there usually, browsing steam by rating works decently.

I'll throw out a recommendation for Dave The Diver, fun little oddball game.

Cannot recommend Adam Millard's youtube channel enough. Every year he reviews his top games, many of them make it to my wishlist. ex. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Eo7fwGBJ4 You can have a look at other years as well.

I've found many good ones just from looking at games with high review score on MetaCritic. This is how I found Hollow Knight and Chained Echoes, for example.

On a side note, it's quite astounding what just a handful of people, sometimes a single individual, can accomplish. It becomes quite clear that the main limiting factor when trying to create a good game is simply your own imagination and creativity. A large team with a huge budget seems to be just as much of a curse as it is a blessing.

Steam 250 [0] lists the top-rated games. You can filter by tags, price, date; but the most interesting category for me is the "hidden gems".

[0] https://steam250.com/

My personal method is to find a Youtuber who you enjoy watching that has similar taste to you and plays a variety of games. Also gives you a preview to decide whether you like a particular game or not.