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What are some hidden indie gems nobody knows about?

Which indies did you discover and would love more people to know about? I’ll start: The Pale Beyond. Not sure if it’s a hidden gem tbh, but it’s such a good story rich game. I laughed, I cried and felt the characters struggles. If you like story rich games/ choices matter, check it out.

ivanafterall ,
@ivanafterall@kbin.social avatar

I've never heard or seen anybody else mention Suzerain. It's like a choose-your-own-adventure political strategy game, which is pretty unique. You are the new leader of a fictional nation wrestling with corruption. Your decisions will affect the outcome. Game is only $6 on Steam right now and is well worth it.

Also worth mentioning Ostriv, a beautiful city-builder in which you build an 18th Century Ukrainian village, complete with individual little villagers wearing their villager clothes. It's lovely and made by ONE GUY, as best I can tell? Also, last I saw, the entire game was somehow under 1 GB, if I remember correctly. It's absurd.

BmeBenji ,

It’s old enough that I can’t attest to how hidden it was/is, but Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery is likely the greatest 3 hours I’ve spent in a single videogame. It’s chock-full of confidence and style and atmosphere. The story is nothing unique but the presentation is everything. Pixellated graphics contrasted with vivid sound design and a glorious soundtrack. I love everything about it.

julianh ,

Distance - an arcade racer that plays like a good 3D sonic game, has a cryptic story, and has elements of horror. Completely bonkers combination but it works super well.

Thumper - another very fast paced game, but also a rhythm game. The devs label it as “rhythm violence” and it fits. The music is percussive and ambient, mostly consisting of the sounds of you slamming through turns and hitting the a button with ferocious intensity. Levels can take well over 30 minutes.

The Beginner’s Guide - might be more well known but imo this is a must play for anyone who does anything creative. It’s a two hour walking sim, but I feel like it’s a story best told as a game.

INeedMana ,
@INeedMana@lemmy.world avatar

The Beginner’s Guide

Definitely a gem. So meta

BmeBenji ,

DUDE did you also attend Digipen (camps or real classes)? Nitronic Rush was the fuckin shit and Distance was a massive graphical upgrade. Also hard to deny how great multiplayer is as an addition.

julianh ,

Nah I just found nitronic rush back in the day, and found out they were working on a follow up.

slin ,

Hypnospace Outlaw

popcar2 ,

Levelhead is a fantastic mario-maker esque platformer. The official campaign is a little over 10 hours long and is pretty good but its main draw is its incredible level editor and infinite number of quality levels online. I can’t recommend it enough. Sadly it never got as popular as it should have but there’s still a massive backlog of online levels to play.

Someone else mentioned Distance and I agree. It’s a futuristic racing game with some horror elements. The campaign is short, but there’s a great amount of levels in the workshop. The multiplayer modes are also pretty fun if you can grab a few friends (there’s split-screen too).

Inkbound is launching from early access soon and while I wouldn’t say it’s the greatest roguelike out there, it’s a lot of fun and very unique. It’s essentially a co-op turn based RPG where you and other players play all your turns at the same time. I’ve played a lot of singleplayer too and the game feels well balanced there.

Voxelgram is Picross 3D for PC. Must-have for people who like nonograms.

jerkface ,
@jerkface@lemmy.ca avatar

Voxelgram is Picross 3D for PC. Must-have for people who like nonograms.

I know many of those words.

popcar2 ,

TL;DR you’ll enjoy it if you like casual puzzle games lol.

Voxelgram is a spiritual successor to an older game called Picross 3D. Picross 3D is a 3D version of a popular logic puzzle called Nonograms.

taiyang ,

Hmmm… how about the Rusty Lake games? They’re weird. Or maybe Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk? Adventure puzzler and VN respectively.

I probably have a few more if I think about it. My friend and I randomize my steam list to decide things to play and there were quite a few interesting ones I got from who knows where-- bundles and bundles.

micka190 ,

how about the Rusty Lake games? They’re weird.

And they’re also linked. It’s a really cool rabbit hole to go down. Definitely recommend them to people who are into games with some meta elements to them!

taiyang ,

There’s even a recent one that’s two player, I guess inspired by the We Were Here games. Which now that I think it it, also recommend.

My friend and I still say “My blood sugar is low” and “Owls” now as again as an inside Rusty Lake joke.

jerkface ,
@jerkface@lemmy.ca avatar

From The Depths – very deep large vehicle design and combat game, prepare to happily lose months of your life

Barotrauma – help crew a submarine under the command of the captain to perform missions in an alien open world. fun multiplayer with good in game VOIP

Katana314 ,

Aquaria is a very expansive Metroidvania with great visuals, creative encounters, and excellent music. Certainly one of my favorites growing up.

half_built_pyramids ,

Receiver is pretty good. You have to clear the slide, and remember to count bullets, did your own jams, and otherwise it makes shooting more of a simulation rather than an arcade.

DocMcStuffin ,
@DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world avatar

They released two games. The first was just a game jam thing they threw together that established the core mechanics. The second was much more fleshed out and polished.

INeedMana ,
@INeedMana@lemmy.world avatar

If I’m not mixing something up, they also created Overgrowth (third-person action platformer with rabbits beating up wolfs). And in order to distribute it without messing with third party services, they’ve created Humble Bundle. They sold it to some company later but for a long time it was them putting together the bundles.

It’s a little off-topic, I know

dog ,

I’ll add Noita to the list of hidden gems. And Baba Is You.

Pietson ,

I'd say both are pretty well known by indie game standards, especially baba

taiyang ,

Baba even has merch from third parties (e.g. fangamer) so yeah. But you know what, screw it, I also love Baba is You. Two votes!

CluckN ,

Noita has won multiple awards and made over $61 Million in revenue.

vasus ,

Ouroboros - an RPGmaker game where the protagonist is trapped in a looping simulation and tries to escape without alerting his captors. Short and sweet, perfectly executes the power fantasy of being a hyper competent rational character who’s gone completely emotionally numb after living for thousands of years. It’s an adult game and features some sex scenes but they’re not important and I think they can even be turned off. It goes on an 80% discount every steam sale.

Armok_the_bunny ,

For the record, every game by that dev is incredible. One of them is still being worked on but should be finishing this year, and that one is free.

amio ,

Treasure Adventure Game, maybe? I believe it's free, though there's a paid remake of it named Treasure Adventure World now.
Cutesy "kid goes on adventure" 2d platformer with sailing and some Metroidvania-y or Zelda-y factors. Cute pixel art and the music is very well done.

BiggestBulb ,
@BiggestBulb@kbin.run avatar

Hmm, ones no one knows about...

Probably Icy: Frostbite Edition. Pretty solid, not something to get full-price necessarily but it was pretty good when I played it like 5 years ago. Interesting turn-based combat.

Also, OneShot. My avatar is from that game, I really think almost everyone should play it.

Ashtear ,

I had a great time with a couple card battlers last year, Cobalt Core and Nitro Kid.

Cobalt Core has a similar presentation to FTL, with a turn-based format instead. Plenty to do in it, great soundtrack, charming writing.

Nitro Kid is on a more traditional 2D grid with an isometric viewpoint. It appealed greatly to my love of 80’s settings, but I’d wait for a sale as it’s thin on content.

M137 ,

A Robot Named Fight - “Metroidvania roguelike focused on exploration and item collection. Explore a different, procedurally-generated labyrinth each time you play and discover randomized power-ups to traverse obstacles, find secrets and explode meat beasts.” Links: Steam - Website (It is also available on Switch, link on website)

I have almost 500 hours of playtime and still go back to it every now and then. Really awesome game with superb music, graphics and feel.

What’s extra cool is that the lone developer open-sourced the game code, available here: OpenARNF on GitHubSadly I’ve yet to see any mods, spinoffs or anything else come from it.

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