Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow (PC)

Since most games are often mentioned on the internet, I'm going to reach waaaaaaaay back to my childhood and mention Cartooners:

This was a game for kids to make their own cartoons. I spend so much time making all kinds of funny and weird stories. It was very basic, but it had me giggling every time.

Final fantasy tactics a2.

Gunstar Heroes. It was the first game I ever beat on my Genesis.

3D Movie Maker (1995) - Game for Windows 95

Zero Tolerance

A game that’s never mentioned on the internet? Probably would have to be something that came on those shareware discs in the 90s then.

I’ll go with the Adventures of MicroMan

So I just invented a game.
I kinda like it a bit.
Of course, I'm not going to tell you its name or its rules, or I will have mentioned it on the internet, which will make it a paradox.

Le fabuleux voyage de l'oncle Ernest (the translation would be Uncle Ernest's Fabulous Journey, but I don't think it's been released outside of France)

I don't remember much of the game but I loved it as a kid, around 9-10.

The game is about the traveling journal of our adventurer uncle: Ernest. From what I remember it's like a virtual treasure hunt, trying to find clues to find our uncle. It's a lot of minigames going through Africa, Istanbul, Borneo ...

Freelancer, very fun space sim that didn't quite seem to get popular enough

I never see Cultist Simulator recommended but it's one of my favorites. It really captures the idea of studying the esoteric arts, and has a surprising amount of world building given how simple the presentation is.

This is a hard one because I generally try to play good games these days, and good games either get popularized through word of mouth or Youtubers make video essays about how they were misunderstood at the time. For me, this question is really asking "Hey what weird trash did you find back when you were 10 years old digging through the bargain bin for whatever you could trade two games you finished for."

I think my big picks from the weird trash are The Urbz, which comes from back when they made Sims spinoff games instead of endless DLC, and Ty the Tasmanian Devil, which was a 3D platformer metroidvania that revolved around collecting increasingly elaborate boom-a-rangs. I definitely sunk the most hours into the Urbz, because nothing was more fun to a 10 year old than going around a virtual town flipping people off.

No One Lives Forever

To this day I have no idea why I bought it. And I bought it close to its release date. I would only do that if I had been absolutely obsessed for months with previews and stuff. But I remember none of that.

And still it ended up becoming one of my all time favourites.

World in Conflict is one I don't see talked about. Squad based military RTS.

Multiplayer on that was so fun. Guessing how the enemy was moving in order to time how you call ordinance on them was my favorite part

Quartile

https://simplyfun.com/products/quartile?srsltid=AfmBOop09ABddbZdM5bz8rjCiUxzoa2F35ERKOhxo6exVtLh0V3D2MCD

Closely followed by Mexican train domino

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Train

Cultures 2.

Battlezone 2: Combat Commander. When I started playing that, my brother and I had to face each other and use our laptops' infrared ports.

Idk, I remember hide-and-go-seek being pretty sick as a kid. I don't often see it mentioned.

Challenge accepted. Does anyone recognize Llamatron: 2112? I played it on Amiga, but I think it was also on Atari and DOS.

It was an acid trip "llamas are funny" parody of Robotron: 2084, and it was a fuckin' BLAST!

Haven't seen it mentioned here, but my favorite game of all time is one that is Rarely mentioned - if ever,

The World Ends With You, originally for the DS, now on Switch.

MC Neku has 7 days to figure out wtf is going on in The Reaper's Game, but he can't remember anything.

Fun combat mechanics, the DS version had you fighting 2 combat encounters at the same time, one on the top screen, and the main one on the bottom screen. The sound track was amazing! I still have multiple soundbytes from that game as ringtones.

The Sexy Brutale!

It's a murder/puzzle game and I really enjoyed it.

Xcom 2.

A friend recommended it to me because he thought I would like it. It's my favourite game and I have 100% it.

Majesty.

It's a strategy simulation game, a bit like an RTS, but you can't directly control units.

Instead all units follow general archetypes. Rogues generally won't spontaneously help you but will do most anything for money. Warriors will seek out monsters and lairs that have been discovered. Rangers will explore the map. Units will also do things like buying potions or upgraded equipment based on their class and intelligence.

As the player you choose what buildings to place and can offer rewards for exploring an area or killing something.

There was a sequel, but it's a significantly worse game than the original.

Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising. It's the only game in the Carrier Command-like subgenre of RTS that isn't part of the Carrier Command series. Shockingly well written, too, for what it is.

Commander Keen might be one of the few old enough not to have been mentioned to me since the internet became well-known.

Also, Squarez.

Hammershlagen

Anno Domini

Each Anno Domini game consists of 336 cards, with a description of a historical event on one side of the card and the year (and sometimes specific date) in which it happened on the other. All Anno Domini games can be played as a standalone item or mixed with some or even all other editions.

In Anno Domini, each player receives nine cards (or fewer, if you want the game to be shorter) and may look only at the descriptions. In turn, players place a card on the table, trying to place their card in chronological order to those already present. Instead of adding a card, a player may claim that the order in which the cards have been placed is incorrect. In this case all cards are turned over and the correct years revealed.

If the order is correct, then the doubting player receives two cards and skips a turn. If the order is incorrect, then the previous player – who accepted the order as correct or made it incorrect through her own placement – receives three cards. The first player with no cards remaining in hand wins.

The Anno Domini game series exist only in German.

Hero’s Quest by Sierra (Later renamed to Quest for Glory)

I don't see many people ever really talking about them at all outside of fans, but Krosmaga and One More Gate from Ankama.

Krosmaga is a deck builder autochess like game (with something like 9 or 10 different classes/dieties with different abilities to build around, alongside a bunch of non-specific cards any class could use in their deck). Place summons/spells to protect your Dofus (dragon eggs, to simplify what they are) and destroy theirs. Matchmaking is either play against computer, who randomly selects class and gets default deck, or just flatout random player. Don't think there's any selective matchmaking, sadly.

One More Gate is a short enough roguelite game where you accidentally destroy a portal and have to fix it by beating bosses in new areas, usually after multiple failed runs. Has meta progression, which I personally am not the biggest fan of.

Two very niche board games from the 70s: "Snit's Revenge" "Lie, Cheat, and Steal"

And an old Avalon Hill wargame: "Wooden Ships and Iron Men"

Tzolk’in is my favorite game, I think. It is a board game that incorporates time in an interesting way for a worker-placement style game.