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.
I play, almost exclusively, non-AAA games. Some gems, known and hidden:
- Autonauts and Autonauts Vs Piratebots - Cute automation games
- Spelunky - Elegantly simple and well executed platformer
- BPM: Bullets Per Minute - Rhythm FPS. Others have tried. None I have found have been as good.
- Immortal Redneck - FPS roguelite
- Ziggurat - FPS Roguelite
- Receiver II - Unique FPS roguelike. Every part of everything that moves is simulated. The hammer on your gun hits a firing pin which hits the primer on the cartridge. You can get stovepipes, misfires, double feeds, etc. You don’t reload by hitting ‘reload’ but go through the full manual of arms in a shooter where the tolerances for failure are fairly slim.
- Valley - running game. The feeling of letting a hill propel your running to otherwise impossible speeds, bottled. Nice little story too.
- Dredge - Lovecraftian fishing game.
- Tunnet - lovecraftian network technician simulator. Build a network to allow communication between computers in an underground society with unspeakable horrors occasionally destroying your mind/body.
- Opus Magnum - Programming puzzles
- Vagante - roguelike with tight tolerances
- Ruiner - Cyberpunk slash n dash with a soundtrack half by Sidewalks and Skeletons. Very fun.
- Tails Noir - Detective story. Normally find the anthro thing a bit tiresome but this was pretty good. Well written.
- Elderborn - First person brawler
- Webbed - be a peacock spider. Rescue your lady spider. Help insects. Fight a bird. Dance.
- A Story About My Uncle - Movement game. Jump, dash, grapnel. Simple and elegant.
- Tormentor X Punisher - Top down twin stick shooter. Everything dies in one hit. All the enemies, and you.
- Tin Can - Survival game in which you try to keep up an escape pod long enough to be rescued, which is hard when it seems to have been made by the lowest bidder’s lowest bidding subcontractor and maintained with all the loving care of a convenience store bathroom.
Tails Noir was a cool little game! I really liked it. 🤩
I liked that it wasn’t a parody of itself. Most of the writing could have been unchanged if it hadn’t been anthro themed. And the writing was nice, nothing ham-fisted, and had some respect for the reader. I keep running into games where you’ve just talked to an NPC about how they need you to hit the blue button, and you’ve gone through a hallway of posters saying your goal is to hit the blue button, had a quest marker guiding you there that says ‘this way to the blue button you need to press,’ and your character still feels the need to speak to the air about the need to hit the blue button when you walk into the blue button room.
Crimzon Clover: World EXplosion. Top 3 shmups of all-time and best shmup on Steam, IMO.
You might like !shmups@lemmus.org
Factorio.
Honourable mentions:
- Chants of Sennaar
- Blue Prince
- Animal Well
- Raft
- Citizen Sleeper
Lethal Company. It was developed by one person, yet it outsold Call of Duty. It trended from 2023 to 2024, but I still play it at least weekly. A couple Lethal Company clones have since come out and some say one (R.E.P.O) is better, and graphically I would say yes, but nothing quite matches Lethal Company’s charm.
It’s a scrap-collecting + space horror survival + comedy game. The comedy feels very unintended and that’s why it’s so fucking funny. You encounter very horrifying creatures, then see your friends die the funniest death. Then you hope to collect enough scrap to survive another day.
Absolute favorite is Outer Wilds. The only thing I don’t like about it is that I can’t experience it again. A true masterpiece of a game.
After that, probably Noita for sheer insanity. Deeply unfair, but getting a god-run going is that much sweeter. It took me ~100 hours to beat it the first time, now I can consistently win if I try but I’m addicted to doing stupid things to see what happens.
Top of my list right now is Vintage Story! It’s like a serious version of Minecraft, with more focus on realism.
Monster sanctuary (turn based monster collector) and Roboquest (arena shooter) were a couple from recent years that stood out to me
For older games nethack and dwarf fortress are great if you can look past the graphics
Dave the diver! /s
But seriously I’m a real sucker for platformers, and so A Hat In Time is my most favorited one. It brought back this sort of charm I haven’t felt since the n64 days and I love it!
Stray and Kena: Bridge of Spirits are pretty awesome too, would be my second and third favorites
Cave Story, the original 2004 version.
I played it a long time ago and I still think about that game from time to time.
Cave Story is undoubtedly the greatest Metroidvania made to date of which I know.
Cave Story really isn’t a metroidvania. The path splits at points, but there’s very little choice where to explore. It’s just a platformer action shooter.
My favorite metroidvania has to be Aquaria. Vibes of the game are on point. The story is great for a game in that genre, and the traversal and combat are unique and tons of fun. Soundtrack is phenomenal.
Check out Gato Roboto if you want a metroidvania similar to Cave Story!
Live for Speed
I’ve been playing it on and off for over 20 years now with some definite highs and lows but I have nothing but respect for the devs (3 people) and community. It’s not on any store fronts and they just do their own thing.
Shadow Empire. Best 4X wargame ever. 400 page rulebook included. Realistic logistics and planet generation 6000 years in the future!
Exanima Unique physics-based isometric dungeon crawler also featuring an arena career mode.
Moddable.
Really slow development cycle, though.Severed Steel Futuristic 3D shooter with maybe the best movement system I’ve tried, with wall running, full 360 air movement, sliding and more.
Weapons have only one magazine, so you’re constantly sourcing them from your enemies while blasting holes into the fully destructible levels.
Very replayable.Judging by the playtime, Rimworld. It is such an important part of my life at this point, it’s not even funny. I’ve played thousands of hours, and don’t regret it
Slime Rancher, though most of my library is indie so I could list like ten others.
I won’t list out the “big” famous ones since those get covered anyway (Stardew, Undertale etc.)
There are plenty I love that have a little less polish but charm their way through, like Calico and Yonder. I also just played through Tunic and quite enjoyed it.
A solid indie publisher is Reddeer games - about half my switch titles are by them. Finji is another.
Check out Tunic. I would recommend going blind.
