I you love puzzle games you need to try Can of Wormholes, over 100 handcrafted puzzle stages where every puzzle introduces a new idea or interaction, very underrated game.

Globulation2 brings a new type of gameplay to RTS games. The player chooses the number of units to assign to various tasks, and the units do their best to satisfy the requests. This allows players to manage more units and focus on strategy rather than on micro-management.

It's actually quite old and has gone through stretches of inactivity, but appears to be kept in working order in its git repo, and recently has been getting maintenance patches.

In Grotto, you play the role of a soothsayer living in a cave who is occasionally visited by members of a tribal society living nearby. They come to you with problems, and they want you to present your opinion, but you can't speak. You have access to constellations of stars, which each hold different meanings, and you must present your answers in the form of a single constellation, which the petitioners are left to interpret.

You'll feel a bit of frustration as your intended message is missed completely in favor of something that the petitioner wanted to hear, and the same constellation might mean different things to different people, but that's just part of the game. The story unfolds around you and its progression is communicated to you only through the explanations your petitioners give for their visit. Each is a uniquely unreliable narrator, so what you believe is for you to decide.

Two endings, and an interesting story with some occasionally unexpected consequences that might make you feel bad, so if a game giving you a case of the sads is unappealing, maybe take that into consideration.

Copy Editor: A RegEx Puzzle Game

It's a word-puzzle game that incrementally teaches you how to use Regular Expressions (RegEx) to find & replace text. Some of the puzzles add silly restraints for you to work around, and the game has charming NPC coworkers that introduce each challenge.

Quest Master. Mario Maker meets Zelda dungeons, done well. It deserves way more attention than it's currently getting, and it's pretty fun with huge potential despite being early access.

Hoplite (puzzley turn-based mobile roguelike). Here's a review I found: https://toucharcade.com/2014/01/08/hoplite-review/

I don't like mobile games, but this one is really elegant. It respects you as a customer, unlike a lot of mobile games.

Haven't played in a while, but I really enjoyed it a few years ago.

Eternum (warning: NSFW) is an adult visual novel that keeps touching me with every new update. It's completely free, and I can't help but think of the creator as a master of the genre.

The characters are all well written and (those who are meant to be) lovable. The story is interesting, compelling even, and the humor is often hilarious. When you go to the website, you might think "Porn game!!!", and not be entirely wrong, but Eternum is so much more. It's a story about love, friendship, and a mystery.

Setting: Orion moves back to the USA after a long time. In recent years, a video game called eternum has been gaining traction, that allows going into virtual worlds, think full dive VR like in Sword Art Online. I'd say about 60% of the story happens IRL.

I can only recommend this masterpiece of a visual novel.

Twinsen's Little Big Adventure 2 Classic (aka LBA2 or Twinsen's Adventure)

You are Twinsen, a little tank-like controlled character that's about to go on an adventure to save his planet!

The tank controls may be getting a bit used to, but you can jump, roll to the side, hop backwards, etc, so you can apply some creativity to your movement. Shout out to the Magicball Network for staying alive all those years!

Go out there, meet a godess, defeat a dictator!

Cave Story+.

You are Quote, an amnesiac robot. The world appear to have gone to shit and you don't know why.

It's a 2D sidescroller, which if I told myself, I would find immediately boring, but the animation, controls and story combined as just so good. It's so good.

Severed Steel. F.E.A.R. meets Tron, plus a Mega Man arm cannon, plus the movement out of Titanfall. It's incredibly fun and satisfying to play, and it has an exceptional soundtrack (if you like synth).

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1227690/Severed_Steel/

Soundtrack: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1754220/Severed_Steel_Soundtrack/

Space Station 14!

We Who Are About To Die

https://store.steampowered.com/app/973230/We_Who_Are_About_To_Die/

Physics based Gladiator roguelike. Work your way up, start fighting with boards dressed in rags in city crossroads for the amusement of peasants, and end a God of Blood fighting in gold in the Coliseum!

Or die along the way. You'll die a lot along the way :)

Dungeon Keeper

It's a dungeon management game from '97. You are an evil Keeper and control a dungeon where you need to build rooms and train your creatures to attack (or defend from) the good guys.

Nowadays people play KeeperFX which is the opensource remake.

Children of a Dead Earth is a tactical space game with n-body Newtonian physics. This means that on the surface it is very similar to something like KSP, you can do things like orbit a Lagrange point. In addition, you can design all the parts of you spacecraft and weaponry down to the materials they use. If you can make a fuel tank made out of aerogel work with the laws of physics, then you can use it. For example, I made a coilgun that fires nukes which was devastating at close range but the low velocity of the nukes made them easy to dodge at long range and without any thrusters, they cannot course correct.

Vintage Story

I've always heard it described as Minecraft meets Primitive Technology. I would say that is quite accurate. Maybe some (optional) Don't Starve like elements where you have to worry about the temporal rift (sort of like insanity) and drifters (largely at night).

Technology progression is much slower than Minecraft. Also much more involved. Want a stone axe? You have to place a stone on the ground and use another stone to knap it into shape first. Make an iron shovel? You have to heat up the ingot first and then beat it into shape on an anvil. If you are too slow and it cools down you have to heat it up again.

Farming has 3 nutrient groups, so fertilizers and crop rotation is important.

Leather making is a multi step process of soaking hides in various liquids.

It has a built in and very extensive guide/wiki. It also has a native Linux build.

From the depths for me is a vehicle building game that's targeted to whoever likes tuning little systems. Haven't seen anyone know of it besides in the community itself. It's a bit like toying around with Lego technic. There's also quite a few more obscure versions of it, but I put this one out because I like it best.

Golf Club Nostalgia(917 Reviews)

This is a game that isn't here for the game play. I think if you are paying at all attention to the boring dystopia, or climate collapse communities then this will hit in a way that is hard to define.

Its a golf game. Simple, could be played on a phone really, but you have to have the sound on for this one.
You are a member of the elite refugees who have fled to Mars and only return back to Earth to use the husk of a planet for a round of golf. And your companion is a lone radio broadcast from Mars of what they have left, which is stories and the rare music that was saved.

The combination of overwhelmingly good world building and consistent vibe even down to the level names and journal entries hits like a train and made me cry at least a couple times.
It made me feel nostalgiac for a world that has not yet come to pass and is a great on sale pick.

Uplink

A classic from Introversion. It's a bit older so it's gotten over the review threshold by now, but I'd wager it's relatively unknown.

Tinykin
I know you said less than 1,000 reviews but this is at 1,500 so I think it just squeaks by.

This game for lack of a better description, adorable and over too soon.

Like a mashup of pikmim, Spyro 2, and Tony Hawk Pro Skater. It's got lots of fun platforming and new puzzle mechanics in an ever adding open world that is a true joy to traverse and cute silly little side plots that make for rather grand set pieces when it all comes together. I got 100% in 12 hours but also collect-a-thons are my jam and I was plowing through the game with grin on my face for everything but the platinum time trials.

Enderal: Forgotten Stories

It is actually a Skyrim mod but basically a complete game that just happens to be built upon Skyrim. It features full professional quality voice acting in German and English, new game systems inspired by the Gothic series, a setting separate from Elder Scrolls, and a story that gets close to the quality of Planescape Torment or Disco Elysium. I can't recommend it enough.