Over the years, some really great indie games have come out. But these books stand out as some of the best in the genre.
At the beginning of the 2000s, you needed a big studio to make a game because good computers were still very expensive and not as common as they are now. Because technology is getting cheaper, most people now have all the tools they need to make a game in their homes. Now, if someone wants to make a game, they don’t need a big budget or a lot of people to help them. Instead, a small budget and a small team are more than enough to make a great game. Some people even do it all by themselves and make a game from start to finish.
Indie games are more popular than ever, with hundreds being released every year, each with its own twist. The indie scene has helped keep creativity alive and well in the game industry. There have been a lot of great indie games over the past few decades, but these are some of the best.
Night In The Woods
Night in the Woods is about a young woman named Mae Borowski, who drops out of college and moves back in with her parents. In the game, you get to explore Possum Springs and talk to the people who live there. You also find out the scary secret behind Mae’s friend Casey Hartley’s disappearance.
The story of Night in the Woods is told by how Mae interacts with the other characters and how she explores the town every day. Since the main focus of the game is on her journey, it’s a great choice if you like games with stories.
Cave Story
The Metroidvania Cave Story, made by Daisuke “Pixel” Amaya, is known as one of the most influential indie video games. This is even more impressive when you consider that it was made by just one person. In Cave Story, you play as a robot named Quote who has lost his memory. Your goal is to stop the Doctor from stealing the Mimigas for bad reasons.
Even though the game has a linear story, there are still parts where you can explore. For example, you can pick up different weapons to help you get through the caves.
Hades
In the roguelike game Hades by Supergiant Games, you play as Hades’s son Zagreus, who is leaving the Underworld against his father’s wishes to meet his mother Persephone. Zagreus is stopped by his father’s servants when he tries to get to the surface. If you like Greek myths, you will probably like how the characters are rethought here.
The way you play Hades is directly tied to the story of Zagreus’ escape. After each “death,” you have to try to escape again, getting stronger each time and unlocking new dialogue, buffs, and even weapons. The story and game design of Hades were also praised by critics, and the game won Best Indie at both the 2020 Golden Joystick Awards and the Video Game Awards.
Stardew Valley
ConcernedApe’s cozy farming simulator Stardew Valley is one of the best games in its genre because of how it works. It was based on the original Harvest Moon games. You have to take care of your farm, look around the nearby town, and get to know the people of Pelican Town.
In Stardew Valley, you take over your grandfather’s abandoned farm after he dies. It’s up to you to fix it up so it can produce food that you can give to the locals or use to finish the Community Center. If you want a game that will keep you busy for hundreds of hours, this is the one to choose. You can fish at the beach, fight monsters in the mines, or date the eligible bachelors.
Hollow Knight
Team Cherry made the Metroidvania game Hollow Knight, which has been praised for its tough but rewarding boss battles. In Hollow Knight, you play as the Knight, a bug with a nail who is sent to clean up the fallen kingdom of Hallownest. As the Knight, you have to look around the empty kingdom to figure out how to stop the disease that is killing people and spreading through the land.
The amazing art by Ari Gibson and the unforgettable music by Christopher Larkin make Hollow Knight a truly unforgettable game. At first, it might be hard to get used to the difficulty, but in the end, it will be worth it.
Enter The Gungeon
Enter the Gungeon is a run-and-gun game like Robotron or Smash TV that is played from the top down. There are many different characters to choose from, each with their own strengths and skills, and a huge number of guns to find as you play.
Every enemy in the game is some kind of bullet, and they all fire colorful bullets at you quickly, which you have to dodge or avoid with your “invincible roll.” In Enter the Gungeon, if you die, you have to start the whole game over with none of the equipment you had before.
Limbo
Limbo is a puzzle platformer with an eerie, all-black-and-white look. To get back to your sister, you have to make your way through a dark, dank forest and an industrial town. You can’t attack, so you have to solve puzzles to move through the game and get rid of a big spider that is after you.
Once you finish Limbo and find your sister, you go back to the beginning of the game to do it all over again because, as the game says, you are in Limbo.
Hotline Miami
The dark, weird setting, trippy music, and mysterious calls from an unknown source make Hotline Miami feel like an odd fever dream. You get phone calls with cryptic messages that tell you who you need to kill next. The fast-paced, one-hit combat, music, and style of art put you in a sort of trance.
There are many masks to choose from in Hotline Miami. Each mask has different benefits that will help you finish missions. The game has a story, but it won’t just tell it to you. You’ll have to carefully read through each message to find out what it’s about.
Crypt Of The Necrodancer
Crypt of the Necrodancer is kind of like a mix between the classic “dungeon crawler” and a “rhythm game.” In the background, there is always a dance track playing, and you have to move and attack to the beat.
Cadence of Hyrule is another game in the series that can only be played on the Nintendo Switch. It brings the gameplay from Crypt of the Necrodancer into the world of The Legend of Zelda.
Undertale
Undertale shows where it got its ideas from. If you haven’t played the classic Super Nintendo game Earthbound, you might not realize how much Undertale borrows from it both thematically and visually, but still has its own style.
Undertale was made by a single person, Toby Fox. It plays like an old-school JRPG, but there’s a twist: you don’t have to kill your opponent; you can just make them weak.
Darkest Dungeon
Darkest Dungeon is a must-play if you like the stories of Lovecraft. You play a kind of typical turn-based RPG where the order of your team is important because some characters are better in the front, back, or middle. But on top of managing your team’s health, you also have to watch out for their sanity.
Your party will go crazy when they see eldritch abominations, which will cause their stats to go down. Darkest Dungeon is very hard, and you’ll need to know a lot and plan ahead if you want to survive the night.
Spelunky
Spelunky is a game where you have to go down a mine and see strange things as you go. You have a limited number of ropes and bombs that you need to use to get through randomly generated levels that get harder as you go deeper.
Spelunky has four parts to each level. You have to go through all four parts three times with supplies before you can open a shortcut to that part of the mines. But as the game goes on, you have to go through each stage in order with only one life to really win.
Braid
The puzzle is based on time. Braid is an early indie game that set a high quality standard for games to come. In Braid, you can turn back time, which helps you make jumps you didn’t quite make and is also the key to most of the game’s puzzles.
More and more time-related parts are added to puzzles as you get further into the game. As you move through Braid, you find out that it is a love story that is really a secret story about nuclear weapons.
Cuphead
Cuphead is a run-and-gun game that mostly focuses on boss fights with multiple stages, but it also has some run-and-gun, bullet-hell stages.
The game’s art style is one of the things that stands out the most. It looks like an old cartoon from the 1920s, and the music fits. The animations for each boss are amazing, and Happy Wheels game as a whole is almost as fun to watch as it is to play.
Inside
Inside is the best example of how to tell a story without dialogue through gameplay. It’s a lot like Playdead’s other indie game, Limbo, but instead of a forest, it’s set in a totalitarian government.
In Inside, you play as a young boy in a dangerous world where everyone and everything is out to kill you, just like in Limbo. There are many ways to die, and the fun ragdoll physics and great sound design really make you feel bad for the poor boy with no name.
