Text-Based Hidden Gems on Steam
Unlike generic lists, our game recommendations use a rigorous analysis of Steam user reviews to identify and feature only the best, community-validated text-based games.
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Bladesong
The ultimate swordmaking game. Forge unique weapons with freeform blade shaping and modular hilts, perfectly balanced to your customers’ needs. Master the art of smithing and uncover the secrets of Eren Keep, a last haven of a dying world – or so they say.
Confidential Killings - A Detective Game
A series of murders is shocking Hollywood! Use your detective skills: search the crime scene, find clues, solve the mystery. Who is pulling the strings behind these Confidential Killings?
Hymer 2000
Hymer 2000 is an interactive text puzzle game, where players freely converse with the "Hymer" and use an open "Search" function to retrieve past conversations. By discovering keywords, gathering clues, and collecting "Faces", players uncover Hymer's secrets and ultimately shut it down.
Ballshit
The first live-action visual novel with an anime flair! Gamer 'Eggy' turns into a girl. Join bro Monkey and his gf to uncover why the school belle hides a tough guy soul. Seek a cure or embrace your new life. Your choice drives this adventure!
Welcome To The Dark Place
The train is the only escape.
Sani Yang's Laboratory
You wake up in the world of anthropomorphic creatures. After finding you've been the subject of a certain lab's experiments, you must find the ulterior goals hidden from sight. Is this lab secretly a threat to the human world? Or is there more to it that you simply cannot understand?
Scratch Inc.
Build an Empire, From Scratch, in this Scratch Card Idle/Incremental game.
Stellar Code
Mysterious phenomena from space. A researcher's fatal accident. Cryptic codes engraved on an unknown material. Together with your brilliant sister-in-law, you must unravel a mystery that could determine the fate of Earth. A sci-fi mystery visual novel of discovery and suspense.
Fate/hollow ataraxia REMASTERED
Relive the four days of destiny...
52 / 0 = ∞
This is a story with illustrations. You have to choose your destiny. You are obsessed with the idea of creating an ideal society. One day you come up with a genius idea, and you create a society that could live forever, BUT HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE!!?
Summer Pockets REFLECTION BLUE
No matter how much times passes... I remember that blue, blue summer. Summer Pockets, the midsummer story brought to you by Key, has been powered-up with even more to play, including new heroines and routes, in Summer Pockets REFLECTION BLUE, now available on Steam!
Shambles: Sons of Apocalypse
“The world you knew is already collapsed.”As an explorer in a bunker, explore a new world 500 years in the future and decide its fate. You can lead the world back to doom or bring it to peace. It all depends on your choices.
The Chef's Shift
The Chef’s Shift is a fast-paced typing game in a restaurant setting, where you’ll both cook & serve food to hungry customers, all done by TYPING.
Love, Elections, and Chocolate
Love, Elections, and Chocolate is a romantic visual novel developed by the Japanese game studio Sprite. Upon its release in Japan, it garnered numerous awards for its exceptional art, captivating music, and well-crafted characters.
qualia
Intellica thanks you for volunteering in this short text-based Research Study. Pay attention to the participants answers, and classify them as either Human or Artificial. Join us in shaping the future of technology. Remember, think happy!
The Test: Reality Check
The Test: Reality Check is one of multiple installments in an ongoing social experiment that can be classified as an atmospheric, psychological-simulation with horror elements. Dive deep into your own psyche to find answers to questions you've kept locked away, hidden from yourself for far too long.
Never Second in Rome
Never Second in Rome is a turn-based historical game with RPG and management elements. You are a Roman centurion in the army of Julius Caesar. You will control both your character and the unit under his command.
The Butterfly Collector
investigate the evidence left by a stalker and kidnapper and track the fate of a college girl. The player advances and watches the plot by clicking to make choices for the heroine at key moments, with different choices leading to different endings.
The Chef's Shift: First Course
A fast-paced typing game in a restaurant setting, where you’ll both cook & serve food to hungry customers, all done by TYPING. Play through the Italian restaurant and get a taste of The Chef's Shift!
DEAD LETTER DEPT.
Working at a data entry job in the big city, you type up and transcribe the lost mail and letters that have nowhere else to go. But as the days carry on oddities in the mail start to emerge, and cracks begin to appear.
The Shell Part III: Paradiso
The coiling chains of obsession that began with The Shell now threaten to strangle Detective Reiji Tokisaka in the third and final entry in the trilogy. As old friends and foes rise up for one last confrontation, can anyone break the cycle—and can Reiji's heart ever be set free?
OneRoom ―Yui Hanasaka Memorial―
That pure love, that lovey-dovey moment again――A new, immersive animated novel game where you can experience the story of Yui Hanasaka, the main heroine of the popular short anime series OneRoom, from the protagonist’s point of view.Revisit her special moments in this innovative experience!
Night Shift Nurses
A washed-up mad doctor is hired back by a devious former test subject and asked to twist her hospital into a corrupt donation mill. Will he seize this second chance to practice his own vision of "science," or will his many failings drag him down once again in this pseudo-medical visual novel?
Seedsow Lullaby
"My mother, my daughter, and me—three sixteen-year-olds on an extraordinary adventure."After traveling through time to meet their sixteen-year-old counterparts, three generations of women set off on an adventure through the Land of the Gods. What could await them at the end of their journey?
PROXIMATE
Congratulations, contractor! You've been approved to trial our cutting-edge AI visor. Use it to explore the Neuras lab and recover the staff's research. Your visor is safe, reliable, and up to 99% accurate. Just don't ask why the "ketchup" in the corner makes such a horrible crunching sound.
Putrika 1st.cut:The Reason She Must Perish
"Even though I knew this love was forbidden..." While the tragedy is being told, the girl's true love is revealed! Enjoy this crazy pure love drama with beautiful visuals and cute characters!
The Crimson Diamond
Follow amateur geologist and reluctant detective Nancy Maple to the ghost town of Crimson, Ontario to investigate the discovery of a massive diamond in this retro-inspired, EGA text parser mystery adventure!
JudgeSim
Things were worse than ever in Banana Republic, a somber island country. While anarchists roamed the streets, corruption was running deeper due to economic crisis and rising crime rates. Bearing these burdens were "judges" who tried to make things right with honesty...
Hookah Haze
It's the year 2xxx. The inexperienced Toru Sumiki lands a job managing Hookah Haze, a new hookah lounge on the outskirts of Akihabara, where they meet three eccentric girls. The story unfolds as the girls gradually open up to them, connecting through their fondness for hookah...
Inverted Angel
A girl visited your home, who you don't know but she identified herself as your girlfriend. She seems a little bit Menhera, but she knows too much to be just a stalker. This is a Kawaii Future Mystery, you will answer by free input for branching story. Please Try to find out true identity of her.
Football Referee Simulator
Football Referee Simulator—the groundbreaking game that puts you in the referee's shoes! Are you ready to kickstart your career in the lower divisions and ascend to legendary status by overseeing thrilling finals?
The Dearest Person
A visual novel about what it means to be human. A story about loneliness, self-identification, and the meaning of existence.
Uncover the Smoking Gun
A Battle of Wits with AI: Solve the case by conversing with a suspect robot using GPT to gather evidence. What single truth emerges from countless dialogues and pieces of information?