Asklemmy

Dwarf fortress and RimWorld are both... Pretty ugly

Dcss is the greatest game of all time. Everything about it is good.

But Dwarf Fortress is also good with bad graphics.

Factorio is like crack and looks terrible.

I have had some people refuse to even try Baba Is You, because it looks ugly.

I had The Hex a few years even installed, so I have tried it, but only after getting familiar with the style of Daniel Mullins' games with Inscryption I pushed far enough to get interested. Still very clunky, but worth it.

Would Cruelty Squad be cheating?

does Doom count? Because my friends and I still play the game to this day, all the various community mods and maps.

gorillas.bas Classic😎

I would say Kenshi with assests that show it was done by one person and a rough UI, also maybe pathologic 2, although for that game I wouldn't say it's the graphics that put people off it's mostly the gameplay, but the geaphics are weird and really grey/depressive

FTL, it's not very ugly, but it could be improved

Battle for Wesnoth. Best.Game.Ever (slight exaggeration)

Tales of Maj'eyal. A free to play open source roguelike that I hate. This game is amazing. Fuck this game. Also definitely recommend. But fuck this game. After numerous 10-12 hour long runs, I have yet to win.

I haven't played it, but Cruelty Squad beats 95% of these in uglyness. Probably because they (hopefully) do it on purpose.

West of Loathing and its sequel Shadows of Loathing have a bland grayscale artstyle on the outside but they're absolutely hilarious RPGs that have a lot of heart to them.

Kenshi came to mind as that's a butt ugly game but probably not as "hidden". Graphics look on par with Empire Earth 1 zoomed in but it's really unique and original and the low poly look helps it run on my aging PC so no complaints.

Simutrans is great, but looks like dogshit.

Mindustry. It's a mix between an RTS and Factorio. It's pretty nice and Open Source

Unpopular opinion but I thought Return of the Obra Dinn was ugly. However, I really like it and it's one of those games you can only experience ones.

Caves of quid.

I second Stone Soup and FTL! Both amazing, but ugly. Also:

• The Binding of Isaac
• Slay the Spire
• Mario 64

Hardly 'hidden', but there is always Nethack

I never got far in it, but I didn't see anyone mention Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. It's fun to explore a world where everyone has noticeable neck seams.

Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead I find ASCII more charming than anything though

Some people find Slay the Spire's art ugly. Personally I find it creative and original, definitely more personality than if it was just another pixel art game. 😁

Although you are asking for lowkey ugly graphic gems, I'm gonna go for Vampire Survivors.

There's that addictive gameplay loop that just keeps me going back

Bannerlord! Although maybe it could be argued that it’s not “ugly” per se.. curious what others think

Had a lot of fun with Elona (rougelike) a short time ago, didn't know a game like that existed

I always thought Quake was pretty ugly, great fun though. And I guess much of it was probably supposed to be ugly.

Oh hi, have you considered joining the best Lemmy community, !dcss@lemmy.ml? 🙃

If you're into zombies and post-apocalyptic survival, CDDA always looks like a blast to play: https://cataclysmdda.org

The Case of the Golden Idol
Some people dislike the pixel-art style and weird character design, but I find it charming.