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I've been trying to play more indie games lately to broaden my horizons and show some appreciation for some smaller devs, and I want to share some cool ones I've found. I'd also love it if you'd reply with some other indies that you like!
These are in no particular order. I'll also include the store page for every platform the game is on so you can pick it up if you want. I'm trying to pick some more obscure ones, but as I'm writing this thread, I'm realizing that I don't really have as many super obscure games as I thought. All the more reason to ask for your favorites too!
BirdGut: A short platformer that revolves around a bee walking around the inside of a bird. It took me about 2 and a half hours to beat, and I loved the hand-drawn art. It's also free!
The Henry Stickmin Collection: A comprehensive collection of the entire Henry Stickmin series, which is a series of Flash games revolving around choosing a path and seeing whether it succeeds, or fails spectacularly. For the Collection, they also created an entirely new game that's several times the length of all the other ones combined. It's both creative and clever, so I give it a recommendation.
OneShot: This is one of my favorite games of all time. If you like Undertale or any other game that breaks the fourth wall, play this game. That's all I'm going to say on this one.
Poly Bridge: A puzzle game about making stable bridges under specific sets of circumstances. Sounds boring, but it's a great brain buster, and it's one of those games where finding the solution gives you a huge rush of dopamine. I haven't even finished it yet, but I've had a lot of fun with it so far. You do need a lot of patience while trying to get the solution though, so don't play this if you get bored quickly!
The Beginner's Guide: I'm going to be honest, I don't remember much about this one, apart from that it was a very emotional experience that really hit different. The gameplay is walking, but the story is conveyed through the narration, as well as the environments you go through. I only discovered this game because I bought it in a bundle with the Stanley Parable, and I'd advise you buy the bundle as well, because The Stanley Parable is a classic too.
Thumper: This is a rhythm game, if rhythm games were insane and also evil. This game relies on its psychedelic visuals, fast paced gameplay, and sense of flow to put together a really unique rhythm game experience. If you have a VR headset, you can play it there too, which is really something else. I haven't finished this one yet either, but I still recommend it.
Steam | Itch.io | Switch | PS4 | Xbox | Oculus (Quest | Rift | Go) | Dreamcast | App Store | Google Play | Stadia (i did not realize it was on this many platforms wow)
Just Shapes and Beats: To continue with the rhythm games, Just Shapes and Beats is a game where you're a square, and you have to fight a circle who uses red shapes to kill you. It's a combination of rhythm and bullethell, where the attacks are on rhythm and you have to dodge accordingly. I haven't played this one in a while, but I really should. It also has co-op play, which is the best kind of multiplayer: complete chaos.
Death Squared: To continue with the co-op theme this time is Death Squared, another game which I haven't played in a long time, but still enjoyed. It's exclusively co-op, and is all about working together to solve puzzles. Communication and planning is key, and if you don't execute your moves right, your little cube falls off the world and explodes, which is how you know it's a good game.
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes: To keep continuing with the co-op, in this game, one person needs to defuse the bomb, everyone else is frantically trying to read the manual to help them defuse the bomb. I haven't been able to play it more than twice, but it's an almost guaranteed good time. Unfortunately, it's best played in person, which isn't a great thing at the beginning of 2021, but I'm sure you could make it work online so everyone gets their turn to defuse the bomb.
Risk of Rain 2: A 3D shooter all about endurance. It has an extremely satisfying loop of killing enemies to get money to buy upgrades. The difficulty slowly ramps up until the difficulty name is literally "HAHAHAHAHA", which is how you know it's a good game. There technically is an end, although I've never reached it. To be fair, I don't play it that often either. I also recommend playing co-op, because everything's better in co-op.
STRIDE (VR only): STRIDE is a parkour game that's exclusive to VR. I gave it a try during the Steam Lunar New Year Sale this year, and this is fun. It does a really good job of making you feel like a badass when you put in the physical effort to jump, climb walls, and pull out your gun and fail to shoot a guy because you're not good at aiming but keep running anyway. I don't necessarily think it's worth the hefty price of $20 right now, but I'm hoping that they'll keep on updating it like they say they will to justify the price, because the core gameplay is outstanding. It's also great exercise!
VRnoid (VR only): Sorry for putting 2 VR games on here, because I know not everyone has a VR headset, but I really like this one too. I'm sure you know Breakout, and I'm sure you know air hockey, but what if you played Breakout like it was air hockey in VR? That's exactly what this game is. Unfortunately, it's only a demo right now, but like STRIDE, the core gameplay feels great and can still be expanded upon a ton.
Well, that's all I felt like putting in this post. Drop some of your favorite indie/obscure games below, because I'd love to check them out, and hopefully others will too. If this forum has an edit feature I'll probably edit in some more later as well. Thanks for reading!
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