[Free to play] Marie's Room

I just finished it like less than an hour ago. It's pretty decent for a f2p game (of course, it's also pretty short).

I'd just like to point out that if you're an achievement hunter, you might wanna consider waiting for another patch though, as the last update broke the achievement for beating the game. (It does seem that you can mess with the files to get it, but I'm not gonna bother doing that personally) Seems like this was fixed.

Edit: As for other f2p games, another two short ones I've finished recently that weren't too shabby were Robin & A Raven Monologue

definitely, in fact I always put in my wishlist all the DLCs of the games I liked and many of my paid DLCs are related to free to play games!
thanks a lot for the suggestion about marie's room, it has also achievements! when I'll have some spare hours I'll install and play it for sure, now it's wishlisted =)

I just saw that game come up on my discovery queue. It looks interesting! At first glance it's a little similar to Gone Home in just enough ways to give me pause, but I'm interested in trying ito ut for myself and seeing how it gets set apart.

I know that a lot of devs release their first game (or first few games) for free as a way to learn on the job and build a fanbase for their next, stronger titles to have a better chance of succeeding. I feel like that's a fair way to do it - gamers get to try a game that's made without a lot of experience with no money up front, and the dev gets to go through the full game cycle up to launch and learn a lot of stuff on the way.

If you like VNs, there's a bunch of great free ones - like Cinderella Phenomenon, AIRIS, and don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story. The last one isn't on steam, and it's an early work of Christine Love, who went to go on to make Analogue: a Hate Story and Hate Plus. Here's a list if you're interested, look for the tag FREE!!

Speaking of Everlasting Summer, did you see their newest VN coming out? It looks amazing!!! I'm so so so proud of those guys. it's called Love, Money, Rock'N'Roll.

these 2 games are also nice:) We Were Here and Fallout Shelter

I sure hope that the next thing for this developer is a full-length commercial game of the same genre, and this release is a base either for an upcoming Kickstarter campain or for finding a publisher. Aside from the length and a couple of technical problems that, I hope, will be fixed soon, this game looks exactly how a well-made walking simulator should look like, to my mind.

Have you ever come across a free to play game that you cant understand why it was free?

Yes :)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/532840/CAYNE/
In this case I understand, it's because there were crowfunding their next big game. But still, Cayne is short but awesome !

Thank you for your useful thread and heads up, Madsession. ^^

One of the best games ever played...
Something more to Everlasting Summer

As well as Katawa Shoujo, but it's not on Steam.

Edit:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/346290/
https://steamdb.info/app/508380/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/751690/The_Mammoth_A_Cave_Painting/
Very short, almost five minutes

I enjoyed quite a lot You Have to Win the Game. It's not a story driven game, but if you like 8-bit platforms I would strongly recommend it, it feels like a full good game, even though quite short.

I intend to play it sometime, since it reminds me of Life is Strange or Gone Home and I liked both.

Free games I recommend (lots of RPG Maker things and VNs in there since I like these games very much):

Electric Highways Surreal walking sim

Emily is Away AIM simulator, this one is pretty well known

Eternal Senia RPG Maker Action RPG, Overwhelmingly Positive reviews

Fausts Alptraum RPG Maker horror game in the vein of Ib / The Witch's House

Heroine's Quest Amazing Point and Click / RPG hybrid that's apparently very similar to old Sierra games I never played

Mothlight RPG Maker yadda yadda, similar to OFF

Narcissu 1/2 Super depressing VNs

Off-Peak Weird walking sim, prequel to Norwood Suite which was in the Monthly some time ago

Once on a Windswept Night, Emmeline Burns, Six Days of Snow VNs by OEL superstar ebi-hime

Sepia Tears VN with meh art but which is still nice

Void Pyramid Old School JRPG with a setting that's both creepy and hilarious

(Also I really, really hate SG URL formatting.)

Thanks for raising awareness on good free games :')
I should give them a try sometime.
I wonder why they're free when they could charge a low price for their efforts though.