Nocturnowl
Member
Yes, your post was awesome; would you care for making a similar writeup (or even me using that) for those that eventually end in the top and that you've played?
By all means, you can use the summaries if needed.
Yes, your post was awesome; would you care for making a similar writeup (or even me using that) for those that eventually end in the top and that you've played?
The very fact that ten games are required to be accounted for should make it easier for less known games to get into the list at respectable vote counts. Again, I urge you to look at the "Essential RPGs" list and see what a solid, comprehensive list it is. I just want the same for indie games.
My gripe is that everyone lists games that already received strong word of mouth, ie. everybody knows about them anyway. I would prefer if the list was built by people who played hundreds of indie games and actually do have the necessary knowledge to recommend the best selection to other people.Sort of. That makes this thread inherently uninteresting for people that already know their way around Indie Games. But as far as I understood that, its not meant to be for those people. This thread is supposed to create a list people could reference when someone asks for an entry point into Indie Games.
My gripe is that everyone lists games that already received strong word of mouth, ie. everybody knows about them anyway. I would prefer if the list was built by people who played hundreds of indie games and actually do have the necessary knowledge to recommend the best selection to other people.
Nearly every other entry of the essential RPG list is a Final Fantasy game, I don't need to tell you that if you want to experience various facets of the RPG genre in a minimal timespan you do not need to play that many Final Fantasy games, ie. Neogaf's list does a very poor job of narrowing selection to the essential title. Here the variety is less of an issue, the problem is most people voting have played maybe 15-20 indie games to date, most of them the same.
This is a game that should be far, far up on every "Essential" Indie List and one reason why I think I prefer lists made by a few people discussing the topic instead of a whole community. It wasnt the first Sim game, nor was it the first roguelike, but the sheer depth behind the systems is so awe-inspiring that this will probably be a game that will stay relevant forever, or at least long outlast almost any other Indie Game (with the exception of maybe Minecraft). Its a game that released 7 years ago, and there is still no end in sight for planned updates, which add more layers to a game that already is the most complex and ambitious game we have to date. Just two examples:
While this isnt on the same influential level as Dwarf Fortress, it still deserves to be on this list due to being a game that excels at one aspect - Multiplayer. What this game does is heads above any other game I ever encountered. Everything surrounding the MP in this game is just so damn flexible and perfect. This game perfected "playing" your opponent instead of the game on an insane level. While that is something traditional RTS can offer as well, the scaling down to a micro level and immediately allowing for psychological trickeries from start to finish was a masterstroke. This game also proved that you dont need to be a multimillion dollar company to offer a perfect MP experience. Diverse modes, the ability to watch EVERY match ever played from within the game, stats,almost perfect match searching system, wide variety of custom match options.
This is a game on my personal top 10, but I can see why it wouldnt land very far up on a general list. I think the game spoke to a very specific audience, which didnt do it any favours sales-wise. However, it is probably the best game-y representation of how programming works on a very basic level, which is something I want to applaud it for. The challenge, challenge packs and especially sheer endless possibility of how people are able to solve levels got me to wonder more than only once. Its a game about creativity and practicability on a very, very refined level.
My gripe is that everyone lists games that already received strong word of mouth, ie. everybody knows about them anyway. I would prefer if the list was built by people who played hundreds of indie games and actually do have the necessary knowledge to recommend the best selection to other people.
Three blurbs for games I feel strongly about that didnt get any explanation yet:
SpaceChem
This is a game on my personal top 10, but I can see why it wouldnt land very far up on a general list. I think the game spoke to a very specific audience, which didnt do it any favours sales-wise.
I am as much of a fan of indies as anyone else, but just in my opinion Indie Games should not just be limited to Steam or PC games...the spirit of supporting indie is the important thing, no matter what platform it is.
There are cool games on iOS and Xbox, PSN as well...I would have a hard time putting 10 PC games over iOS/Xbox/PSN games if you really want to rank everything together. Both Journey/Flower basically are life changing level games.
If you mean indie as meaning garage game (made by no more than a handful of people) even more I would think about some iOS games like Spelltower and Ridiculous Fishing that are completely amazing games, but there are also some indie XBLA games like Dust that are made by a single person or a couple people.
Been having a lot of fun with Super House of Dead Ninjas is a new one that I've picked up and enjoyed.
It's pretty cheap too.
Path of Exile is badly missing on these lists.
A young girl named Viola awakens to find herself trapped within the grounds of a mysterious house. With no other means of escape, she is forced to venture into the foreboding building, where she must evade murderous spirits and solve the house's riddles if she is to escape the wrath of the witch who dwells within.
The product of 4 years of quasi developmental hell by erka:es, and the best classic Mega Man game ever made (until he churns out his his next one). Each level was a delight to play with excellent layouts and gimmicks
An XBLA release by Ska Studios, and one of the best 2D beat 'em ups I've had the fortune to play. The first thing that strikes you about the game is the unusual, oppressive, but hugely effective atmosphere and art direction. Combat is frantic but rewarding, with some fantastic boss battles that require you to fully utilise the techniques at your disposal. The game also has some of my favourite weapons I've come across in the genre, with an oversized syringe and pair of scissors being the highlights.
Many of the 'official' Touhou shmups could've featured on this list, but for the sake of variety I narrowed it down to my sole favourite. The opening stages of SA are respectable, but its real strength lies in the second half; no entry in the series currently has a more entertaining stages 4-6. Inspirational danmaku, excellent aesthetics and an explosive finale that has to be the most adrenaline pumping battle in the core games thus far. A solid argument could be made for Perfect Cherry Blossom being the better game, but the post Mountain of Faith movement/controls are what tilt the balance towards SA for me. Also not having to go above the 'point of collection' all the time is an absolute blessing.
A 2D side-scrolling beat 'em up based on the Madoka Magica universe, with 6 playable characters and a decent assortment of moves. The masochistic charm of the game lies in the player's ability to set a difficulty 'Lap' on a New Game+, which proportionately increases the strength and defence of the enemies/bosses. By the time I cleared Lap 500 I was averaging a 2 hour playthrough with no continues or save points, rendering me a nervous, gibbering wreck during the final stage (an engaging feeling very much missing from many modern games). Even now I can't listen to the last boss theme without twitching.
Vertical bullet hell shmup by the wonderful Platine Dispositif. An unusual experience in that one of its core mechanics involves you physically ramming your ships into enemies, something which flies in the face of most players' natural instincts. The shop system, selection of modes and 13 playable ships add enough variety that the frequent 'Game Overs' and replaying of the earlier stages isn't as grating as it otherwise can be in the genre. As with many of PD's offerings, the game is hard as nails encased in cement, with a special mention going to the Doomsday version of the TLB for being quite probably the most ridiculous boss I've ever come across.
A 2D arena beat 'em up (i.e. stages are fixed screens as opposed to being side-scrolling) by Lion Heart. You command two characters and can switch between them with a button press, allowing for some rather spectacular combos if your co-ordination is up to scratch. While the regular stages are entertaining enough, it's the boss encounters that shine the brightest, with precision and timing being required to exploit the gaps in their assaults. The soundtrack also contains some of best remixes of Touhou themes I've heard.
Unique shmup that begins as Space Invaders and ends as DoDonPachi. Rather than powering up in the traditional manner, you instead induce 'Generation Shifts', each of which introduces an evolutionary feature of the genre to your ship as well as different weapons and abilities depending on how you've been conducting yourself. A short but sweet experience, climaxing in one of my favourite final shmup stages; a sortie across the evolution of life.
Mega Man meets Touhou. Similarly to Mystical Chain above, you have two characters at your disposal and can switch between them at any time. While lacking compared to Rosenkreuzstilette in a number of areas, its challenging, well-designed bosses and variety of weapons (18 total across the two characters) make it a worthy alternative. If you enjoy 'buster only' runs, you will be reduced to tears at times.
Unorthodox 2D fighter where long range combat is just as important as close range, if not more so. I know some fighting purists like to argue at lengths about how Immaterial and Missing Power is superior to SWR, but I'm not a fighting purist. The sequel has more characters, more cards (i.e. special attacks), is more accessible and generally more enjoyable. And then as the icing on the already heavily layered cake, the UNL expansion was released, updating all of the existing characters and adding 5 new ones.
A cute physics-based puzzle game(s) about a cute bunny girl and her cute adventures with her friends. The manner in which its story is told is unusual but very effective. Googling it would ruin the surprise, so instead you can get the (freeware) game here and the English patch here.
A Mega Man X styled game that begins with a bang which it sadly never manages to replicate until the endgame. Still, it's a frantic and engaging action platformer with an excellent soundtrack and - at times - some really fantastic presentation.
The XBLA adaptation of the original Trouble Witches game. A 2D horizontal shmup with charming aesthetics and a Fantasy Zone-esque shop system. More accessible than many other bullet hell games, primarily due to its straightforward mechanics.
An endearing visual novel which lacks the polish of many commercial releases but surpasses them utterly by virtue of its setting, characterisation and writing. I enjoyed it so much that I actually made the artbook my first backed Kickstarter.
A top-down horror RPG cut from similar cloth as The Witch's House and Ib, with improved core gameplay/mechanics (including some much welcome 'sidequests') but weaker atmosphere and tension. The true ending deserves a mention for concluding the game on a positive note
Hotline Miami has taken over as my favourite game of all time. Everything about it is class.
Finally someone posted some Touhou in the thread. I was beginning to get worried.
What did you think of Cactus' other games?
Here's one for the poster who complained about people's lists being similar.
Is Mark of the Ninja indie? Excellent game but based on its credits, I'd say no.
There's nearly 30 people who worked on it in a major way which is far bigger than what most people consider indie.
RPS made an article about blurring the line between big indies and big companies going indie. Here's an excerpt about Klei (devs of Mark of the Ninja), bolded are quotes, not the most important parts:Is Mark of the Ninja indie? Excellent game but based on its credits, I'd say no.
(...)
There's nearly 30 people who worked on it in a major way which is far bigger than what most people consider indie.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/08/on-the-power-and-the-diminishing-returns-of-indie/Publishers might be only truly interested in making money, but if that means they are willing to take risks funding development of games that they expect people will want to buy, why would developers turn that down? And why would any gamers begrudge developers taking their money? I asked Klei Entertainment’s Jamie Cheng whether the games they’ve made would have been possible without their partnerships with the EA (Shank) and Microsoft (Mark of the Ninja):
I’m certain Shank would’ve made it’s way out one way or another, but I’m not so sure about Mark of Ninja. We have tons of prototypes or ideas that we’ve shelved over the years. The scope of Ninja was probably too big for us to self-publish at the time. I like to think that we’re strong enough creatively that we don’t sacrifice the quality whether we self-publish or partner.
He went on to talk about how control of a project is shared between a small developer like Klei and their monolithic corporate partners:
While we’re always happy to listen to input, both from our partners and our fans, we make absolutely certain that we have control over the direction and the IP of the games we make. I think that’s crucial when a developer is trying to break new ground. Being strong in your conviction of what the game should be as the developer is a necessary (but not sufficient!) condition to creating a compelling experience. There was one project where we didn’t do this, and allowed ourselves to bend to the wind of criticism. The result was a bland game that thankfully eventually got cancelled.
In terms of pricing and marketing, in general that’s a collaborative effort, but more and more we are handling community management and marketing internally.
My question, then is whether this relationship disqualifies Klei from being an indie studio? Are their games they’ve partnered with publishers on not “indie” games? Should they get to attach their work to that banner?
It’s a semantic minefield, but here’s Cheng’s take on it:
We absolutely identify ourselves as independent. We choose which games we decide to make, with whom, and on which platform. In terms of how to classify the games, however you would like to semantically define an “independent game”, I can say we made the creative and implementation decisions independently, and work in that spirit from start to finish.
Tere is less ambiguity with latest title, Don’t Starve, which they are self-publishing. I asked him why they decided to self-publish Don’t Starve, and how that’s impacted the game:
Don’t Starve is our own little pet project that we wanted to experiment with, and self-publishing made the most sense for that purpose. Self-publishing allowed us to do basically whatever we felt was the right thing to do, at any moment, without worrying whether it would cause pain to our partners. I think the result is that the game is doing all sorts of things we’d never do traditionally — early access, constant updates, extremely open development, etc. We love it, though we also think this sort of development works especially well with a procedural survival game like Don’t Starve. I’m not sure early access would have worked nearly as well for a game like Ninja.
That seems smart to say that the correct strategy is going to depend largely on the game, and the circumstances of the developers making them. Independent developers self-publishing their own games can spawn creative and disruptive ways of developing and releasing games, that savvy publishers will react to. Indie, then, might simply be a matter of context.
Stop. That hurts.HolyBaikal
Japanese Culture Expert
I mentioned it because it was noteworthy. It was ZUN's first foray out of the PC-98 world and into the Windows world. Embodiment of Scarlet Devil also showed the signature style of Windows Touhou games that would follow. It is also easily the most famous Touhou game and the one that helped spawn the many thousands if not millions of Touhou fans worldwide.Though EoSD is probably my least favourite of the post PC-98 core games. Hoping you singled it out for noteworthiness rather than because you think it's the best.
Who are Cactus?
Cactus/Cactus Squid is one person(Jonatan Soderstrom,). He makes indie games, Hotline Miami was just his latest work (together with Dennis Wedin).End of Hotline Miami spoilers:They're the characters in the final level
Just before that he released Keyboard Drumset Fucking Werewolf, which, together with "I maed a game with Zombies in it" (or however that's spelled) are the only "music-video" games I've played.
Here's "Cactus Arcade" a bunch of freeware games he released all in one file: http://db.tigsource.com/games/cactus-arcade I recommend Shotgun Ninja and Clean Asia
And here's "Cactus Arcade 2", which is another bunch of freeware games he made.
It's cool to see people outside the indie scene finally catching on to him with Hotline, but it's frustrating that not many on GAF have played any of his earlier games. Help correct this!
What are your thoughts after reading it and you being a much smaller dev?
Totally not my intention, I meant it as a compliment! I hoped having a bunch of Touhou stuff in my list would've been a hint. Anyway, yes, agreed on the significance of EoSD.Stop. That hurts.
I can never be honest about games I love again because I'm forever branded a joke by my tag. Now every time I mention I like a Japanese game I look stupid.
I mentioned it because it was noteworthy. It was ZUN's first foray out of the PC-98 world and into the Windows world. Embodiment of Scarlet Devil also showed the signature style of Windows Touhou games that would follow. It is also easily the most famous Touhou game and the one that helped spawn the many thousands if not millions of Touhou fans worldwide.
Actually, Mark of the Ninja was funded by Microsoft, not EA.The whole issue of "Is this indie or not?" is often a big gray area. And it's not unusual for a team that started out as indie to become something else entirely - Activision is basically the original indie game developer and now they're the most hated of all AAA studios.
From that article, it sounds like not only did Mark of the Ninja have a sizable development team, but they also received funding from EA ("The scope of Ninja was probably too big for us to self-publish at the time.") so I'd say it's definitely not an indie game after reading that.
Then again, the game we're working on right now is another borderline case. The game is completely self-funded by Zeboyd Games (which is made up of just me & Bill Stiernberg) but it's using an IP from Penny Arcade (which actually, I'd consider another indie company due to their small size, albeit a very successful one). Is Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 4 an indie game? You could answer either way.
Yes, it's an indie game because it was primarily made by 2 people (and even if you're counting PA staff who worked on it & outsourcing, the total primary credits is only 6 people, excluding volunteer testers & a few singers for one of the songs) and the game was funded by Zeboyd Games.
No, it's not because it has a publisher (PA) and it's based on an IP that Zeboyd Games doesn't own.
So yeah, this whole area can get murky rather fast with the result that most people go more on the gut on what an indie game is than anything else. Like with Journey, many people consider that to be an indie game since it's artsy and was made by a relatively small core team, even though it was published and heavily pushed by Sony & even got a retail release later on.
Oh and just a quick note on the whole publisher thing - Microsoft doesn't allow indie developers to self-publish on XBLA. So if you see an XBLA that was published by Microsoft Game Studios sometimes it was funded by Microsoft and other times it's not and they just agreed to let Microsoft be the publisher because that was the only way that they could get on XBLA.
Actually, Mark of the Ninja was funded by Microsoft, not EA.
Finally someone posted some Touhou in the thread. I was beginning to get worried.
ah, missed there was a format to follow.Can you make that list 10-item? You can put honorable mentions later if you feel like it. I know it's hard, believe me. :/
Finally someone posted some Touhou in the thread. I was beginning to get worried.
Also, Trouble Witches is such a great game. Though I hate how the localization is horrible and XBOX exclusive.
ah, missed there was a format to follow.
you should rearrange the OP a bit with a list of requirements or something, or people will miss it (it's a lot of text you know).
I'll see about fixing my post now
can I do less than ten?I actually bolded it yesterday, but that was after you posted, I think. I think it's clear enough now? Or should I put more emphasis on it?
Edit: There's a lot of posts that don't have 10 items yet... if any of the original posters read this, could you please fix them? If not, I'll have to ignore them for the tally. :/
can I do less than ten?
If we're counting it, Mark of the Ninja a million times over. The game is a masterpiece in playability. While other indie games do more to forward the medium, Mark of the Ninja is pure, refined, fun traditional gameplay.
I find it surprising that Braid isn't mentioned anywhere in the 20 games listed in the OP.
yeah I think my problem is that now I have to select 10 I think are equally good because of the scoring system, which leaves me in a weird place when I have to add games I don't think are as good just to meet the criteria.No, that's the thing. I'm going to have to ignore any list containing less than ten entries, as it upsets the vote balancing and disproportionally shoots up the vote count of those games in the list (which in turn tend to be the most popular already). Also, as a measure that people have a bit of indie culture before voting. But, since your list was already over ten, you should be able to trim it, right? If a list is over ten items, I'll just pick the first ten, that's why I asked you to remake it.
yeah I think my problem is that now I have to select 10 I think are equally good because of the scoring system, which leaves me in a weird place when I have to add games I don't think are as good just to meet the criteria.
I'll see about filling the minimum 10 but that's my opinion on the overall scoring system. you know, for future threads.