Do you know of an adventure game that you personally consider to be underappreciated? Good news, you’ve found the right thread to bring greater awareness to those unsung heroes of the adventure developer community. This is where we will shine a spotlight on those hidden gems to help them sparkle with the recognition they deserve.

To get things started, I would like to draw your attention to a little-known demo called Odd. The protagonist is an avid rock collector and hiker from Norway. Wouldn’t it be funny if this quirky man stumbled upon a massive secret that planet Earth is actually a giant mental ward? Hats off to the creators for having an original premise.

I played this short demo back in the early 2010s. It still stays with me to this day for several reasons. The starting location is a picturesque Norwegian cliff with a camper van parked on top. The hand-drawn artwork is beautiful. Humour is weaved seamlessly into the storyline and the peaceful background music ties it altogether into an atmospheric delight. I don’t want to spoil too much, play it first-hand to experience it yourself.

I’ve tested it on a Windows 11 computer and miraculously it still works. Use the following Game Jolt link to download this fantastic adventure:

https://gamejolt.com/games/odd/929

After you’ve finished the demo, there is also an expanded backstory and lore on the official website:

https://www.lysator.liu.se/odd/synopsis.html

I’m looking forward to all of your game suggestions. Let’s transform those underrated games into cherished classics.

As a Norwegian, I never even heard of this! Looks like it was developed by a Swedish team, though.

Unfortunately the MacOS version of the demo does not work on my current Mac.
And sadly, it looks like the game was never finished, their site was last updated in 2011...

Yeah, unfortunately Apple made 64-bit apps a mandatory requirement. Odd was made back in 2009 when 32-bit apps were common. Thanks, Eirik, for at least trying to download the game, I appreciate that.  The game had a lot of promising potential, but only ever mustered 3000 views total on Game Jolt. 

What an Odd little game!

I agree with you about the artwork and premise, I wish this would've turned into a full game. I thought the puzzles were funny; this type of humour really works in adventure games. My favourite thing were the descriptions of and different types of values attributed to the rocks. Some practical, others sentimental. A nice way of giving the hero a personality.

I've been going over games I could recommend. I had a couple in mind, but I'm still debating whether they are a) hidden b) gems. I've pulled up some games from my itch.io library, I'll be sure to post about them here if one of them fits the bill.

Thanks for the mini-review Bob! Glad to see that I'm not the "odd one out" with appreciating this game's humour style. Looking forward to your hidden gem suggestions, by the way.

Anyone else feel like mentioning a freeware title or game demo they felt massively flew under the radar? This thread will be its new home now.

Cloak & Dagger Games did a couple one of which isn't as well known as the other, even though the first below isn't as well known as it should be.

Mudlarks is a pretty long game, quite difficult with one puzzle that is very poorly outlined. The problem that most people have with the game is the character movement but I came to enjoy it. Highly recommended.

The second is A Date In The Park. Quite short, oddly disturbing and somewhat idiosyncratic. Well worth the 90 minutes or so that it will take.

First to come to mind is Don't Escape: 4 days to survive. It's not really a game-changer like MI or DotT, but I found myself utterly immersed and really worried about whether to bring the bubble-wrap or the barbed wire for each segment. It forgoes any moon-logic for *really* down-to-earth what-do-i-need to survive logic in a very engaging way.

Metal dead was also a pleasant surprise. MS Paint-level graphics and no voice-overs tricked me into believing that this was absolute trash-level game, but it perfectly adhered to George Romero logic, one-upped Shaun of the dead on comedy, ravished pop culture in general and turned out to be one of the best games ever. So much that I regretted buying it on a sale for just $1.

I wouldn't call it as hidden as the previous contributions, but Emerald City Confidential is both a hidden gem and a good casual entry point for first time point n' click adventure gamers. Good atmosphere, story, music, and voice acting.

Yeah. I'm totally on with the Emerald City Confidential. Awesome game, a genuine pleasure from beginning to end. The wadjet eye game you probably didn't play. I think this had some issues on modern Windows, but certainly plays beautifully on proton.

There was a game I played ages ago called Metal Dead which was about a slacker metalhead trapped in a medical research facility during a zombie apocalypse. It had a pretty great sense of humor, as I recall.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/302690/Metal_Dead/

If you dig deep into my channel's archive, there's an old Let's Play of it there. I'm not gonna link to it 'cos I don't want to be that guy.