I mostly play co-op games and I am tired of the "everything is dark, ugly, and evil, and chaos is rampant" with a souls-copy aesthetic. I crave colorful games and fun co-op mechanics.

Nine Parchments is casual, fun, and beautiful. The point IS that there is friendly fire because the challenge is to get the enemies without getting your friends. Played also by up to 4 people on a single screen.

Coridden is very home-made but has cool mechanics of turning into beasts or riding your friends when they turn into animals. Fun isometric rpg-ish game that can be played on a single screen.

Pizza possum. Steal the food and don't get caught. It's casual, chaotic and hilarious. Co-op as well.

Spiritfarer is a great game. Not sure if it's popular or not bc idk what's popular. No killing, very therapeutic if you've lost someone, is a journey about loving and letting go. Co-op allows you to play the cat.

And go play bombsquad with friends, it is the best and my go-to if I have videogame-comfortable guests at home :)

Love you all. Keep being nice people

Kunitsu-Gami. I tried the demo and spent 8 hours on it trying to get everything perfect, which made me realize I should just buy it. It was a total delight. I didn't expect it, never even heard of it honestly, but I can't stop recommending it.

An indie 3D platformer game from a couple years ago called Hell Pie. You're a low-level demon who gets an angel chained to him, and you can use it to do things like spin him to launch yourself and swing on stuff. If you like classic 3D platformers and toilet humor, it's really very good, and pretty novel.

Plasma - a wildly programmable physics game where you can build just about anything in a fairly accessible manner. The devs eventually just made it free because it wasn't getting much notice.

BPM: Bullets Per Minute - at some point everyone thinks 'what if you combined an FPS with a rhythm game so you had to shoot on the beat?' BPM is that, nailed. Others have tried but BPM got it right.

I have just no capacity to judge what's popular anymore, not sure i ever did.

Laser tag.

It's really dropped off as a sport over the last thirty years. I think kids get the same rush from video games these days.

FTL with Multiverse Mod

Its essentially FTL 2.0

FTL is already underrated. And most people who do play just stops playing because it can get boring quickly. But Multiverse essentially bring more life to the game. Make the game like 50 times more fun.

For tabletop, I loooooove Sentinels of the Multiverse, always hard to find other folks that play it though.

Video game: Remember Me

Not sure if this fits (because it had its moment and its assets are likely popular) but Jump Ultimate Stars for sure.

It is basically the dream of any Otaku materialized and sadly Shounen Jump hasn't been able to top it yet, the more time it passes the more time I appreciate it 😁

For example I have played with Gon and Killua characters since 2009... But just until now I got to see the 2011 Hunter x Hunter adaptation and oh boy, knowing the characters just improve the experience!

Super Puzzle Fighter II: Turbo. Easily the most fun and competent puzzle game I have ever played. It is especially great with 2 players.

DotAge. It's a rogue-like turn-based strategy game where you try to build a village on cursed land, where you have visions of upcoming doom events and the eventual apocalypse. You have to balance stacking resources for growth and basic survival against efforts that will improve your chances of surviving doom events.

The board obviously is different every time. The factors you have to weigh and plan for are just complex enough, and just enough of the future is beyond your sight and control. The gameplay mechanics also change just a bit every time, due to a new mix of buildings and resource gathering methods, as well as new random events that can sometimes have a huge effect on your strategy. You're not just accounting for randomness in your strategy--you have to adjust how you play the game all the time.

Just when you think the game is getting easy, the next chapter drops, you start doing the math, and realize you have overlooked something that may doom your village, depending on whether the RNG punishes you sufficiently. There's definitely a big luck factor, as there is in real life. But you can make your own luck if you see far enough into the future and play well.

It's a very well-made game that can run on a potato, and I'm a little obsessed with it.