You hear a lot of discussion of which games are the best of their genre. But they tend to revolve around the same basic genres: FPS, RTS, RPG, adventure, etc (see there so common, most have their own internet abbreviations). So it got me thing about other less common genres (one thing I love about PC games is their variety) and what games from them are worth playing.

So I was curious of what other more obscure genres were out there for PC games (such as management sims, interactive novels, trading games, educational games, survival horror, political/economic games, etc.) and which games were the best example of their genre?

I'm tempted to just post this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ObsCure_%28video_game%29

:p

i played both of them and really liked them; sure the plot with the plant-monsters is kind of cheesy but i really liked the game and the characters. I have been waiting for part 3 for ages but i don't think i'll ever see it, not a lot of people seemed to like it.

I'm sad that Noctis V never happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_6P59sQcaWo

Television game programs that were played by calling the show and pressing buttons on the telephone, and it didn't work all that well and everyone could see you fail. :p
Dunno how obscure those were, but I've never seen/heard anyone talk about 'em after their time.

Also, whatever genre this is http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=M4FXhFtPhug (education minigame bank ad game?)

Best.. erm.. first person colour growing/adventure/horror... something?
The void

I just remembered NERO. I really don't know what genre you would count this as, but I am quite sure it belongs here.

http://nerogame.org/

AI/Programming? I would categorize it as an artificial life game with the Creatures series.

On an another note, while I wouldn't exactly consider visual novels as games, I think the recently released Katawa Shoujo was a pretty awesome visual novel. It's also my first experience with visual novels so I might be totally wrong too.

Interactive Fiction is relatively obscure this day in age, if you consider it a gamine genre. Anything by Plotkin is decent.. .http://eblong.com/zarf/if.html

I just checked this on GamersGate and it actually looks really interesting. Thanks for the heads up! Anyone know what "Other DRM" means? I am disappoint. DRM is DRM, so that killed my Impulse purchase. :(

Unfortunately I will have to disagree with you on one point. It is not the best game in the Colour Growing Genre. Sorry. That honour goes to WizBall. :)

Would you say that the best posses-em-up was Messiah, Nomad Soul or Paradroid? Hmm...

I have a boxed copy, and that is DRM free. From what I have been able to gather regarding the GG versions DRM is that no-one really seem to know. It might just be a mistake. In any case, I could find no reports of people having any issues with it.

If you decide to get The Void, prepare to spend some time with it. It is a very different game, and not all of its concepts are properly explained. It is also darn challenging (the fan community made an "easy mod" for it). And most of all, prepare for an interesting experience, unlike anything you have ever experienced before.

Most of the time "other DRM" just means that you have to enter a serial number (which isn't DRM by most definitions). I can't guarantee that that is the case here, though.

I have no personal experience with them, but others have said that the GG staff are quite friendly and usually responds quite quickly to questions. You might have some luck contacting them and asking about that specific game (I believe they have twitter account(s), but other communication channels most probably exists as well). "Other DRM" can really be anything, but (again, according to others) is usually just a serial key.