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What is your top indie game of all time?

Goatlender

Goatlender

Goat in the water
Jan 27, 2016
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The 'indie' genre has been a fairly recent development in video games, really only becoming popularized in the last decade or so.

I'm curious what everyone thinks is the best or their personal favourite indie game? Based on both my experiences as well as critics' scores and praise, the following list is a decent starting point for standout games:

Inside
Super Meat Boy
Amnesia: the Dark Descent
Bastion
Cuphead
Limbo
Audiosurf
Braid
Celeste
Shovel Knight
Dead Cells
Firewatch
Rust
Stardew Valley
Minecraft (hard to still classify as 'indie')
Terraria
Faster than Light
Into the Breach
Gone Home
Fez
Cave Story
We Happy Few
SteamWorld
Enter the Gungeon
World of Goo
Don't Starve
Rain World
The Witness
Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2
Subnautica
N++
The Stanley Parable
Undertale
Kerbal Space Program
Hollow Knight
Darkest Dungeon
Florence
Jackbox Party Packs
Castle Crashers
Alien Hominid

In my experiences, playing about 2/3 of the above games, Inside and Bastion are my two favourites.
 
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Stardew Valley, pretty easily for me at this point. I do still really want to play We Happy Few (waiting for a deep sale) and Undertale though.
 
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Divinity Original Sin certainly, so much so that I went out and made the only campaign mods of note for it.


Honorable mention to The Age of Decadence. And Wasteland 2 comes close as well.


If you're looking for an RPG to play a few more indie suggestions:
Expeditions Viking and Conquistador
Serpent in the Staglands
Legends of Eisenwald
UnderRail


I don't play many indie games that aren't RPGs, but the ones I liked reasonably well were Amnesia and FTL. Though I had some problems with both of them too.
 
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Depends on what you define as an Indy game. Some of them (like how you mentioned Minecraft) and become so popular that they have become "mainstream."

One game would count as indy, though is still quite popular is Rocket League.

Heck I would classify some of the mods created for some more popular to AAA titles as potentially Indy. I have played CK2 for hundreds of hours and maybe only 5 of which were on the original game. The Game of Thrones mod for it really good.
 
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The Head Crusher said:
Depends on what you define as an Indy game. Some of them (like how you mentioned Minecraft) and become so popular that they have become "mainstream."

One game would count as indy, though is still quite popular is Rocket League.

Heck I would classify some of the mods created for some more popular to AAA titles as potentially Indy. I have played CK2 for hundreds of hours and maybe only 5 of which were on the original game. The Game of Thrones mod for it really good.
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Yeah good call, Rocket League is a great game and a good example of how popular and mainstream indie games can become.

There are also a few good Diablo clones from indie developers, such as Path of Exile and Torchlight 1 and 2.
 
This isn't a category I care much for TBH. I've just never been a fan of side-scrollers or games that have an intentionally retro look, which the majority of indie games are.

That being said, I think Undertale is arguably the most well-written game of all time, or at least very close to Portal 2 for me.
 
The top indie games of all time are objectively minecraft or tetris, but for me my favorite indies are Bastion, Momodora: RutM, and Story About My Uncle (a serious game from the devs of goat simulator). Im unfortunately a pretty big mainstrean gamer, so I dont really stick with indies past 5 or so hours of playtime.

I got to get around to playing hat in time and dead cells at some point though.
 
I'm the other way around. It's just about the only area in games that I still have interest in these days. Aside from a handful of exceptions, I despise the (at least in my opinion) soulless/charmless aesthetic of most ultra-detailed 3D models and 1st/3rd person perspective games (I kind of feel the exact same bitter way about the transition from hand-drawn animated films to CGI animated films). Indie games can sometimes fall into the trap of feeling too heavy-handed, generic-wannabe-arty-but-not-really, or fishing for nostalgia (rather than just genuinely having the attitude that it's a more effective style, which I personally think it is), but they at least sometimes hit the right mark for me.

Here are my impressions of everything I'm aware of (didn't finish all of them).

1. Inside - 5.0 (Masterpiece)
2. Celeste - 4.5 or 5.0 (Brilliant/Masterpiece)
3. Into the Breach - 4.0 or 4.5 (Flawless/Brilliant)

4. Limbo - 3.5 (Great)
5. Hollow Knight - 3.5 (Great)
6. Journey - 3.0 (Very Good)

7. Shovel Knight - 2.5 (Good)
8. Undertale - 2.5 (Good)
9. The Messenger - 2.5 (Good)
10. Towerfall Ascension - 2.5 (Good)
11. Hyper Light Drifter - 2.0 (Positive)
12. Cuphead - 2.0 (Positive)
13. Braid - 2.0 (Positive)
14. Faster Than Light - 2.0 (Positive)

15. Stardew Valley - 1.5 (Neutral)
16. Super Meat Boy - 1.5 (Neutral)
17. Oxenfree - 1.5 (Neutral)
18. Firewatch - 1.5 (Neutral)
19. Gris - 1.5 (Neutral)
20. Dead Cells - 1.0 (Negative)
21. Thomas Was Alone - 1.0 (Negative)
22. Florence - 1.0 (Negative)

23. Fez - 0.5 (Bad)
24. Minecraft - 0.5 (Bad)
25. The Stanley Parable - 0.0 (Terrible)
 
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Shareefruck said:
I'm the other way around. It's just about the only area in games that I still have interest in these days. Aside from a handful of exceptions, I despise the (at least in my opinion) soulless/charmless aesthetic of most ultra-detailed 3D models and 1st/3rd person perspective games (I kind of feel the exact same bitter way about the transition from hand-drawn animated films to CGI animated films). Indie games can sometimes fall into the trap of feeling too heavy-handed, generic-wannabe-arty-but-not-really, or fishing for nostalgia (rather than just genuinely having the attitude that it's a more effective style, which I personally think it is), but they at least sometimes hit the right mark for me.

Here are my impressions of everything I'm aware of (didn't finish all of them).

1. Inside - 5.0 (Masterpiece)
2. Celeste - 4.5 or 5.0 (Brilliant/Masterpiece)
3. Into the Breach - 4.0 or 4.5 (Flawless/Brilliant)

4. Limbo - 3.5 (Great)
5. Hollow Knight - 3.5 (Great)
6. Journey - 3.0 (Very Good)

7. Shovel Knight - 2.5 (Good)
8. Undertale - 2.5 (Good)
9. The Messenger - 2.5 (Good)
10. Towerfall Ascension - 2.5 (Good)
11. Hyper Light Drifter - 2.0 (Positive)
12. Cuphead - 2.0 (Positive)
13. Braid - 2.0 (Positive)
14. Faster Than Light - 2.0 (Positive)

15. Stardew Valley - 1.5 (Neutral)
16. Super Meat Boy - 1.5 (Neutral)
17. Oxenfree - 1.5 (Neutral)
18. Firewatch - 1.5 (Neutral)
19. Gris - 1.5 (Neutral)
20. Dead Cells - 1.0 (Negative)
21. Thomas Was Alone - 1.0 (Negative)
22. Florence - 1.0 (Negative)

23. Fez - 0.5 (Bad)
24. Minecraft - 0.5 (Bad)
25. The Stanley Parable - 0.0 (Terrible)
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Have you tried out Bastion?
 
I like a lot of games listed here(Path of Exile, Rocket League, Undertale) but I think my favorite is Her Story. It's not even really a game I guess, but I thought the concept was very interesting and my wife and I both played through it and loved it.
 
Firewatch 100% Freaking loved walking around in that game and unraveling the secrets of the world.
 
- Firewatch. Loved the narrative of that game. I fell in love with both main characters pretty much immediately, and I was fully invested in their relationship by the end of the game.
-Binding of Isaac. I feel compelled to put this on here just due to the sheer amount of hours I’ve put into this game. Over all platforms, I’m at 500+ hours.
-Hollow Knight. I can’t say anything that hasn’t been said already. The combat is perfect, the story is emotional, and the bosses are varied and just difficult enough to keep me coming back for more punishment. I love this game.

These would probably be my top-3 as of right now. I’m pretty open to trying indie titles as they come out, so I’m sure my list will change over the next year or so. Hell, it’ll probably change tomorrow.
 
1) Stardew Valley
2) Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
3) Rocket League
4) Pyre
5) Inside
6) The Messenger
7) Celeste
8) The Long Dark
9) Terraria
10) Frostpunk


HM: Bastion, Limbo, Cuphead, Papers, Please , Subnautica, Darkest Dungeon, Game Dev Tycoon

This is actually a hard list to make.

Does Ori and the Blind Forest count? It's a small studio I think, but published by Microsoft so I'm assuming not...

EDIT: Had to come back and edit this month old post because of how good The Messenger is.
 
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Steve Varlamov said:
- Firewatch. Loved the narrative of that game. I fell in love with both main characters pretty much immediately, and I was fully invested in their relationship by the end of the game.
-Binding of Isaac. I feel compelled to put this on here just due to the sheer amount of hours I’ve put into this game. Over all platforms, I’m at 500+ hours.
-Hollow Knight. I can’t say anything that hasn’t been said already. The combat is perfect, the story is emotional, and the bosses are varied and just difficult enough to keep me coming back for more punishment. I love this game.

These would probably be my top-3 as of right now. I’m pretty open to trying indie titles as they come out, so I’m sure my list will change over the next year or so. Hell, it’ll probably change tomorrow.
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I'm up to 3500 hours on Isaac :help:

If I'm sitting here watching a hockey game or a show I'm not super into, chances are I've also got Binding of Isaac going too. And it's been that way for years.
 
Spawn said:
I'm up to 3500 hours on Isaac :help:

If I'm sitting here watching a hockey game or a show I'm not super into, chances are I've also got Binding of Isaac going too. And it's been that way for years.
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Oh, wow, I don’t feel so bad about my 500+ hours now, haha.

I get what you mean, though. I usually turn on a podcast and play through a couple of runs on Switch. Before that, I would spend most of my nights after work doing some runs on PS4. Somehow, the version I have on PC is the version I’ve played the least. I don’t know what it is about that game, but I keep coming back for more day after day.
 
Just bought hollow knight, enter the gungeon, and omega strike. Will update my all time rankings soon
 
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