Given the big swathe of posts about bad behavior from big companies, I figure we could counterbalance that with some positivity about stuff the smaller guys made that often costs us less too.
Celeste is one of my favorite games period, and it qualifies. The gameplay parallels the story better than any other game I’ve ever played or seen played, and the soundtrack, art, and characters are amazing. Top tier gameplay and a great story to go with it.
Alternatively, if you’re looking for absolutely unhinged strange gameplay made by a programmer rather than a game designer, check out Fractal Block World. It’s pretty fascinating!
Super Daryl Deluxe
That game has one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard in a game.
Rimworld
Banished, you can’t get more Indie than just one guy’s passion project.
I don’t know what it is about that game but it really struck a chord with me and I’ve come back to it over and over. It’s my favorite game to play when I’m sick and can’t do anything. It’s relaxing and peaceful and cozy while also being complex and ruthlessly challenging at the same time, so it’s like spinning plates. Seems easy when you get the hang of it but it can all come crashing down if you make a bad enough mistake. It’s spawned some copy cats, and I’ve tried them, but the original just gets me somehow.
Some I really appreciate that I’m not seeing on this list:
I’m currently enjoying Blue Prince which is a fairly new rogue-like puzzle/mystery game it’s hard to explain without spoiling but it’s worth looking up.
Portals of Phereon is one of my absolute favorites. It’s a fairly deep tactical RPG thing with loads of replayability. It’s kind of like a Pokemon x FF Tactics but with monstergirls and it’s also currently free while it’s in development. Be aware it’s extremely NSFW and horny, which I suspect is the main reason it’s not as popular as some of the others listed (IE rimworld, stardew valley, etc.) however the horny is such a key point to it’s original gameplay and world-building that it wouldn’t be the same without it.
Thea: the awakening is a decent tactical RPG. I love it for it’s original battle mini game, crafting system and world-building. It unfortunately has some balance issues and jankiness that prevents it from being an all time favorite, but it’s definitely one I would encourage at least trying.
Thought of a few others:
- Reus (2nd one’s alright, first one’s excellent)
- Library of Runia
- Book of Hours
- Kenshi (saw it listed one other time, but it deserves a lot more love)
Synthetik is my top steam game with, like, 900 hours.
Magicraft.
Can’t really add much to all of the great games already mentioned. But I’ll add one, because it was one of the best games I played in recent memory. Chants of Sennaar. Where to even start? Point-and-click adventure/puzzle game that is all about language puzzles. With great visuals and music. Really dig the eurocomics inspired style. I don’t know why, but this game really touched me - maybe it’s because the game is about uniting people in an age of discord.
Minecraft (the old one)
Swapper
Not my actual favorite, but it’s very high on my list, and I didn’t see it posted yet.
Just looking though some of my higher playtime games, here’s a few I haven’t seen mentioned: (I think they’re all indie or small studio)
Gunfire Reborn - Roguelike fps with infinite replay.
Troubleshooter Abandoned Children - XCOM style battle system with a really really fun way to customize how your character fight. Story is pretty lame though (I ended up skipping it) and it’s pretty grindy.
Thronefall - Pretty challenging base defence.
The last spell - Turn based base defence with lots of different ways to build your characters.
Ratropolis - Roguelike real-time card strategy base defence. Pretty good, although not well balanced at highest difficulties.
I really liked What Remains of Edith Finch.
It was more of an experience and really struck some emotional chords, leaving me write emotional at the end.
Really beautiful and melancholy experience.
Check out Tunic. I would recommend going blind.
Used to play battlefield 2, BC2 and 3 alot. Then I stopped playing online games and recently started playing “Ravenfield”. It’s succesfully filling the void, there are even battlefield maps and some vehicle/heli/jet/tank mods and ignoring the fact that it looks like battlefield heroes (very indie-style graphics), the physics/handling feels pretty close, especially when flying heli and shooting rockets
Dyson sphere program is still one of my enduring favorites.
