Hidden Gems of Game Design Volume 33

Plenty of amazing games go unnoticed and are not played widely for various reasons. Maybe it’s a diamond in the rough, or the marketing wasn’t there, or it could be a game ahead of its time. For this monthly series, I’ve asked my fellow writers on SUPERJUMP to pick a game they think is deserving of a chance in the spotlight. Let us know your favorite hidden gems in the comments.

Josh Bycer

Star of Providence (2017/2025)

The 2010s was a decade of redefining roguelike design, a topic in one of my major design books, where I cover everything from deck builders to roguelikes and many games that borrow elements from other genres. One genre that has seen a few amazing examples of combining roguelike elements with their gameplay is the bullet hell/shmup, and to my memory, the first one to go big this way was Star of Providence from Team D13.

You are exploring a mysterious tower as a tiny little ship, and you must go through it floor by floor to reach the top. The gameplay is a mix of bullet hell and twin-stick shooting. You’ll need to learn how to dodge through enemy bullets while being constantly on the move. Your starting gun is okay, but the game features multiple weapons of varying bullet sizes, attack types, and ammo supplies. On top of that, weapons can come with randomly chosen modifiers that affect their properties even further. All secondary weapons have an ammo limit and when that runs out the gun gets destroyed.

One detail I really like about SoP is that no resource gets wasted. If you’re at full health and get more of it, the additional health goes toward raising your max life, and full ammo = bonus scrap that can be used to buy resources. Much of what makes the game work so well is how much care has been taken to make playing it as seamless as possible, including instant fast travel outside of combat to any room you’ve already visited.

Throughout a run, you’ll find passive upgrades and special rooms that allow you to choose one from a pool of upgrades to add to your ship. At the end of each floor, you’ll come upon one of many challenging boss fights, which is where the “bullet hell” comes in.

Following the game's release, the developers took a similar approach to new content as did the popular title The Binding of Isaac by adding a lot more “stuff.” New enemy types, room encounters, weapons, modifiers, etc. were introduced. Even new ending routes were added that took the player into other parts of the tower to fight new and demanding bosses on top of a progressive difficulty/ascension mode feature.

There’s a good reason why this game is on the list and that you haven’t heard of it, because Star of Providence was not the original name of the game. When it was released, it was known as Monolith and achieved a cult following among its fans, but it didn’t quite get known outside of those small circles. The game was featured at the annual speedrunning convention Awesome Games Done Quick, and when the developer Monolith heard about the game, they issued a warning to Team D-13 about continuing to use the name. From that point on, Monolith was known as Star of Providence.

As of February 2025, the game has been officially “relaunched” with a massive free expansion and console release. If you love action roguelikes and shmups, this is an amazing game that you need to play.

Antony Terence

Wildlife Park (2003)

Zoo Tycoon’s success as an animal business sim in 2001 inspired several rivals that tried to build on its formula of raising animals and making profits from satisfied visitors. One such attempt is Wildlife Park, published by JoWood in 2003. Developer B-Alive gives the visitors some much-needed attention, with plants and path design propping up guest satisfaction levels. And while the game doesn’t break new ground, its systems conjure their own flavor of nostalgia.

Building an enclosure and taking care of your animals’ needs are fairly straightforward tasks if you’re acquainted with business sims from the 2000s. Pick wall materials, terraform the land with an animal’s favorite dirt and plant life, and set up food dispensers to get started. You’ll also have to monitor metrics like temperature, exercise, and behavioral needs tied to certain species. Fumble these and you’ll find protestors breaking fences and trapping themselves in enclosures.

Once you get these sorted, you’ll have to deal with park guests. This involves placing the usual array of bathrooms, refreshment stations, benches, and information maps. Wildlife Park makes guests suffer from thirst more often on hotter maps, meaning you need more drink stands to compensate. Guests also have a plant meter that rises when attractive foliage is placed around paths and enclosures. You’ll have the occasional injured guest and lost visitor to handle but it’s largely smooth sailing. 

The game’s campaign kept things interesting with goals to work towards. Breeding animals is the best way to make money and your animals reproduce only when they’re at 100% satisfaction levels, so get busy. While achieving this is satisfying, the wait for gestation and birth is agonizing, even at the maximum speed setting. 

The pacing wasn’t as fluid as Zoo Tycoon so I would pass the time by naming animals, staff, and even guests. Animals sound great and interact with the environment often but guests seldom do anything remarkable. The Wild Creatures expansion added prehistoric animals but they didn’t hold a candle to Zoo Tycoon’s massive dinosaurs and aquatic life. Despite its clunky UI, subpar graphics, and glacial pacing, Wildlife Park remains a park simulator worth your tinkering time.