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How to Sort Through the Mess, and Find the Gems
By Ryan Dorkoski
With indie devs coming out of the woodwork - Steam is pushing an unprecedented number of games nowadays. Here is a strategy to make sure you don't miss the good stuff.
   
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Created by
Ryan Dorkoski
Online
Category: Secrets, Walkthroughs
Languages: English
Posted
Updated
11 Oct, 2018 @ 3:13pm
11 Oct, 2018 @ 3:25pm
252 Unique Visitors
21 Current Favorites
Guide Index
Overview
The Ritual 
Steam Specific Advice 
Things I Find Useless 
Comments
The Ritual
Each day I have a ritual of sites and spots I visit to see what's new. With this strategy, I don't miss a thing - and you won't either. Now depending on your tastes, you may modify the sections, but you get the idea. This whole thing probably takes < 10 minutes. Overall, the goal is to narrow the search as much as possible to weed out junk. Here is the pattern:

  • Go to Steam, click 'Games' dropdown and click 'Indie'. Now check out the tabs including 'New and Trending', 'Top Selling', and 'Upcoming'. If you do this daily, there is little need to go to the next page. The most important of these lists is 'Top Selling'. Do the same exact thing for the Early Access section (click 'Games' dropdown and select 'Early Access').

  • Invest some time in slowly building up your Steam friend list to include people that are 1) active on the feed, and 2) like to share gems they find. There are plenty of people out there like this (friend me and we'll network). Now check the Steam feed at least once daily. Finally, find the people that are good at searching and check out their Wishlists.

  • Go to Itch.io, click 'Browse' and choose the filter 'Paid'. Check the tabs 'Popular' and 'Most Recent'. You may have to go through a few pages because Itch is weird.

Now, beyond the daily ritual, I check a few other sites perhaps weekly. Here they are:
  • Check indieDB.com and click 'Games' dropdown and then 'Popular'. These are fringe games that are sometimes worth keeping in the back of your mind.

  • I will often do an internet search for 'hidden gems not found on Steam'. In fact, there are sites dedicated to tracking these. I don't use any particular site, but this search has found me many great titles.
Steam Specific Advice
More specifics on how to navigate Steam to find the gems:

  • Stay off the front page of Steam unless you are interested in AAA titles only.

  • Click the search button without putting in text. Now modify this general search by using the clickable filters on the right. Always sort by User Reviews. This will get you the best stuff.

  • Use your Steam Wishlist to save gems you have found, but are not yet released. This is a blessing.

  • While only sometimes helpful, go to the store page of a game you like, and see what is recommended in the bar directly above the review section (titled 'More Like This'). Click 'View All' to get more titles.

  • Click the big 'Community' dropdown and then click 'Home'. Peruse this for articles on up-and-coming games. This is quite helpful.
Things I Find Useless
Now, your mileage may vary depending on what you are looking for, but I've found the following to be an inefficient use of time:

  • Humble Bundle is completely redundant if you follow Steam closely.

  • GOG is too picky about what they sell, so I don't even go there at all any more.

  • There are many other bundle sites that are out there, but other than finding good deals - they generally aren't great for finding hidden gems.
22 Comments
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Ryan Dorkoski  [author] 15 Jan @ 2:31pm 
L O L haha
Del_Duio 15 Jan @ 2:13pm 
Coming from George Washington of course it’d be outdated! I’m here for the history, dagnabbit!
Ryan Dorkoski  [author] 15 Jan @ 1:34pm 
FYI this guide is pretty outdated at this point. Thanks everyone for checking it out.
tricosahedron 12 Oct, 2018 @ 11:01am 
Regarding achievement spam, I found this curator very helpful:
https://steamproxy.net/groups/AchievementSpam#

Joining as a member isn't possible, but you can follow it to see on a game's store page whether the game has a lot of worthless achievements. That means games like roguelikes with many actual achievements won't be affected, but games with achievement spam that are otherwise good are still listed.
So you shouldn't 100% rely on it, but it's still pretty useful.
Ryan Dorkoski  [author] 12 Oct, 2018 @ 8:06am 
Well as far as I have seen, Steam is not limiting the number of Achievements for games that are deemed legit. I am sure there is a hard limit, but it is still quite high.
foofaraw and Chiquita(ARF!) 12 Oct, 2018 @ 8:04am 
That's a comfort.
I've been expecting the first "1 MILLION Achievements!!!" game.
Ryan Dorkoski  [author] 12 Oct, 2018 @ 7:59am 
Del Duio - yes that is correct. From what I understand, Steam gathers info about the game to determine if its a legit deal or not. Until then the Achieves don't count towards player stats.
Del_Duio 12 Oct, 2018 @ 7:55am 
I thought Valve was cracking down on non-games with thousands of achievements though, weren't they?
Ryan Dorkoski  [author] 12 Oct, 2018 @ 5:49am 
Hey foofaraw no worries. I was referring to Rebirth, but I certainly do get your point. In general this is true.
foofaraw and Chiquita(ARF!) 12 Oct, 2018 @ 4:07am 
Actually, Binding of Issac has 99 achievements, not 5,000 that accumulate even when the game isn't running (as seems to be the new trend.)

My apologies, I tried to express that there ARE exceptions. I apparently failed. Mea culpa.