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NeoGAF's Top/Essential Indie Games (Final Results)

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Weltall Zero

Member
Hey! For those late to the party, this is the tally of a voting thread I made a month ago, with the objective of gathering the most popular indie games of all time, for easy perusal by people new to the indie scene. You can check that thread here.

I'm in the process of making the list look decent. Thanks a LOT to zkylon for the pretty banners! (started by his own top ten, then expanded to cover all 20 top games). I've made each banner link to their corresponding OT thread in NeoGAF.

However, it would be great to also have a small write-up for each of the top games, as well as screenshot and/or links to their official websites, and some videos, plus pricing information. I'm a bit exhausted (I have a cold) and lacking in time, so, aside from asking for patience (I'll keep updating this steadily over the coming days), here's where I also ask for the collective might of NeoGAF to help me. If one of your favorite games is in the top 20, feel free to write a description, post a couple of screenshots or link to a defining video and I may add it to the corresponding entry.

Thanks everyone for participating, and here are the results!
*: Future release.

1) Hotline Miami (Windows, Linux, Mac, PS3, PS Vita) (45 votes)



2) FTL: Faster Than Light (Windows, Linux, Mac) (39 votes)



3) Braid (Windows, Linux, Mac, PS3, XBLA) (36 votes)



4) Bastion (Windows, Linux, Mac, Google Chrome, OnLive, iOS, XBLA) (35 votes)



5) Super Meat Boy (Windows, Linux, Mac, XBLA) (34 votes)



6) Cave Story (Windows, Linux, Mac, WiiWare, DSiWare, 3DS) (31 votes) [3DS 3D OT]



7) Mark of the Ninja (Windows, XBLA) (24 votes)



7) VVVVVV (Windows, Mac, 3DS) (24 votes)



9) The Binding of Isaac (Windows, Linux, Mac, PS3, PS Vita) (20 votes)



10) Journey (PS3) (17 votes)



11) Fez (Windows*, XBLA) (15 votes)



12) Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Windows, Linux, Mac, OnLive) (14 votes)



12) Frozen Synapse (Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android) (14 votes)



12) SpaceChem (Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android) (14 votes)



12) Spelunky (Windows, Mac, XBLA, PS3*, PS Vita*) (14 votes)



16) Dustforce (Windows, Linux, Mac) (13 votes)



17) Limbo (Windows, Mac, XBLA, OnLive, PS3, PS Vita) (12 votes)



17) Super Hexagon (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, BlackBerry) (12 votes)



17) World of Goo (Windows, Linux, Mac, OnLive, iOS, Android, BlackBerry, WiiWare) (12 votes)



20) Minecraft (Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS, Raspberry Pi, XBLA) (11 votes)
 
21) Knytt / Knytt Stories / Knytt Underground (10 votes)

21) To The Moon (10 votes)

23) Audiosurf (9 votes)

23) Legend of Grimrock (9 votes)

23) Machinarium (9 votes) [PSN OT]

23) Terraria (9 votes) [Console OT]

27) Dungeons of Dredmor (8 votes)

27) Flower (8 votes)

27) Jamestown (8 votes)

30) Bit.Trip Runner / Bit.Trip Runner 2 (7 votes)

30) Gemini Rue (7 votes)

32) Dear Esther (6 votes)

32) Dust: An Elysian Tail (6 votes)

32) La-Mulana (6 votes) [Wii OT]

32) Recettear (6 votes)

36) Chivalry: Medieval Warfare (5 votes)

36) Dwarf Fortress (5 votes)

38) Avadon: The Black Fortress (4 votes)

38) Critter Crunch (4 votes)

38) Desktop Dungeons (4 votes)

38) Magicka (4 votes)

38) Mount & Blade: Warband (4 votes)

38) N+ (4 votes)

38) Noitu Love 2: Devolution (4 votes)

38) Thirty Flights of Loving (4 votes)
 
Rank 46-63 (3 votes each):

An Untitled Story
Aquaria
Awesomenauts
Bit.Trip Beat
Blackwell Series (Legacy/Unbound/Convergence/Deception)
Castle Crashers
Endless Space
Frog Fractions
Hero Core
Iji
Natural Selection 2
Skullgirls
Space Pirates and Zombies
Super House of Dead Ninjas
The Unfinished Swan
Treasure Adventure Game
Trine
Zeno Clash

Rank 64-106 (2 votes each):

Anomaly Warzone Earth / Anomaly Korea
Antichamber
Atom Zombie Smasher
Ben There, Dan That!
Botanicula
Canabalt
Cart Life
Costume Quest
Defender's Quest
Digital: A Love Story
Dyad
Eufloria
Everyday Shooter
Hydorah
Katawa Shoujo
Maldita Castilla
Miasmata
NyxQuest
Papers, Please
Passage
Path of Exile
Probability 0
Proteus
Ridiculous Fishing
RunMan: Race Around the World
Sequence
Shatter
Soulcaster I & II
Splosion Man
Starseed Pilgrim
Super Crate Box
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
The Void
The Witch's House
They Bleed Pixels
Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers
Toki Tori
Tower of Heaven
Velocity
Where is my Heart
Year Walk
Yume Nikki

Rank 107-243 (1 vote each):

65 Million And 1 BC
A Valley without Wind
Acerac
Adom
AI War: Fleet Command
Akrasia
Alabaster
Alien Hominid
Analogue: A Hate Story
And Yet It Moves
Anodyne
Avernum Escape From the Pit
Barkley: Shut and Jam Gaiden
Beat Sneak Bandit
Bejeweled 3
Broken Sword 1 / Broken Sword 2
Capsized
Cavenaut
Civilization
Clean Asia
Closure
Cogs
Crayon Physics
Crimzon Clover
Darwinia
Deepak Fights Robots
Din's Curse
Dishwasher series
Don't Starve
DROD series
Dungeon Crawl
Dungeon Defenders
Dys4ia
Eliss
Endless, Nameless
Escape Goat
Europa Universalis III
Evacuation
Every Day the Same Dream
eXceed Trilogy (Gun Bullet Children, Vampire Rex, Jade Penetrate Black Package)
Faraway
Fatale
Feed the Head
Flail
Flywrench
Game Dev Story
Garshasp Monster Slayer
Geneforge 6
Genetos
Getaway To Nowhere
Give Up Robot 2
Grand Theft Auto
Grief Syndrome
Grimrock
Hard Reset
Hitogata Happa
Howling Dogs
Ib
Immortal Defense
Imscared
Jelly no Puzzle
Jump
Kerbal Space Program
Killing Floor
King of Dragon Pass
Little Inferno
Lyle In Cube Sector
Marvin's Mittens
MegaMari
Member
Mighty Jill Off
Mighty Switch Force: Hyper Drive edition
Miner Dig Deep
Mondo Agency
Mystical Chain
Nation Red
Nikujin
Offensive Combat
Old Spice Saves The World
Papo & Yo
Pathologic
Portal
Project CARS
Puzzle Agent
Really Big Sky
Retro City Rampage
Robot II Das Labyrinth im Wald
Rogue Survivor
Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel
RUSH
Söldner X Himmelssturmer
Serious Sam Double D
Slave of God
Sleep is Death
Small Worlds
Space Funeral
Spaceteam
Splice
Star Guard
SubTerra
Super Mario War
Suwapyon 2012
Sword and Poker 2
Swords and Soldiers
Teleglitch
Teppoman 2
The Ball
The Ben Jordan series
The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile
The Fool's Errand
The Sea Will Claim Everything
The Ship
The Stanley Parable
Thomas Was Alone
Tokyo Jungle
Torchlight
Touhou 10.5: Scarlet Weather Rhapsody / 12.3: Unthinkable Natural Law
Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism
Touhou Project: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil
Tower Climb
Tower of the Sorcerer
Transport Tycoon Deluxe
Trauma
Trials Evolution
Trials HD
Unity of Command
Unreal World RPG
Velsarbor
Vessel
Walking Dead
Waves
Wine and Roses
Witcher 2
Wither
Within a Deep Forest
ZeldaClassic
ZZT
 
Ronian said:
You got the Binding of Isaac twice.
Click to expand...

Ah damn, was bound to happen with almost 100 voters and 900 individual votes; I had to manually correct most of the entries to make all homogeneous for my talling program, but I guess some slip-ups are inevitable (in this case, Binding of Isaac and THE Binding of Isaac, which don't alphabetize to close positions to spot the mistake). That obviously puts it much higher in the list, as it has the sum of both counts. Time to reorganize!

Edit: I think it's good now. Thanks for the heads up! Let's keep an eye for similar mistakes. :/
 
Not bad at all, though I wish Dustforce was even higher. Phenomenal game. EVERYONE PLAY IT

Thanks for doing this Zero.
 
Amazed that one of my top 10 actually made the rankings. Whoever else voted for The Witch's House, you are a star.

With Ib's recent patch / additional content, it really should've made my honourable mentions and quite possibly my top 10. Ah well, next time.
 
Godofnerdiness said:
Not bad at all, though I wish Dustforce was even higher. Phenomenal game. EVERYONE PLAY IT
Click to expand...

Me too man, me too. :/ I'm slightly disappointed that the first place went to a game I don't even like (yeah, that's right, I don't like Hotline Miami [raises flame shield]).

Godofnerdiness said:
Thanks for doing this Zero.
Click to expand...

You're welcome! Just so happens that I have a cold right now, so I'll just keep making banners until I'm too exhausted and come back to spruce up the OP more in the future, I guess.
 
Audiosurf got 9 votes, man. 9.

Oh snaps, Treasure Adventure Game got 3 whole votes. That's how you know no one has played it.
 
A lot of great games on there, but I can't help but think FTL and Hotline Miami are higher than they should be - maybe because of how recent they are. FTL in particular has a lot of flaws.

Super Meat Boy, Cave Story, and Frozen Synapse should all be higher imo.
 
Can Mark of Ninja and Journey really be on this list? Mark of Ninja was sponsored and published by Microsoft and Journey was by Sony, there are by no means "indie" games.

Mount & Blade is not indie at all too, same with Flower. I think there are a lot of games on this list which have no place there.
 
Damn good list btw and I've played all of the top 10, except for FTL! :D

Dusky said:
Unfortunately for Fez I think any hate expressed towards it has more to do with the dick-headedness of its creator rather than the game itself.
Click to expand...

No there was quite some reasonable complaints on the game rather than just Phil Fish.
 
Antiwhippy said:
Legend of grimrock is criminally low.
Click to expand...

It's 23rd, which is not that bad, actually.

Viewtify said:
Only 6 votes for La-Mulana? Damn Shame.
Click to expand...

This I have to agree with. I'm a bit surprised it ranked so low. Perhaps it's because of not having Steam release until tomorrow?

gngf123 said:
A lot of great games on there, but I can't help but think FTL and Hotline Miami are higher than they should be - maybe because of how recent they are. FTL in particular has a lot of flaws.
Click to expand...

Considering FTL is both my favorite and most played indie game of all time, I cannot disagree strongly enough. For me FTL is pretty much perfection. But well, I've waxed poetical enough about it in its OT.

kazebyaka said:
Can Mark of Ninja and Journey really be on this list? Mark of Ninja was sponsored and published by Microsoft and Journey was by Sony, there are by no means "indie" games.

Mount & Blade is not indie at all too, same with Flower. I think there are a lot of games on this list which have no place there.
Click to expand...

This has been discussed at length over and over in the voting thread. If a game is not unambiguously non-indie (case in point, Plants vs Zombies, Popcap has 400 employees), it's a valid entry. People not thinking it's indie will simply not vote for it, resulting in a lower score that balances out. In any case I'm not going in there again, particularly now that the list is posted.
 
59th place (joint 43rd)! Whoop!

Cheers for doing this Zero - now I have a massive list of games to look out for on Steam (mostly) when the first backlog is done....

Wait. >_<
 
Stuff that didn't get a lot of love but I adore:

Stanley Parable (guess this doesn't count for now?)

Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers (Hits my feverish itch for physics sandboxes - like Nuts & Bolts or RF: Guerrilla)

Edit: Seen a lot of buzz for Miasmata, Starseed Pilgrim, Cart Life. All at the bottom. Weird.
 
OK, provided banners and OT links for all the first 11 games (except VVVVVV, which strangely seems not to have an OT). Platforms/pricing/other links coming in following days, I'm exhausted and should probably be in bed now. :S

SovanJedi said:
59th place (joint 43rd)! Whoop!

Cheers for doing this Zero - now I have a massive list of games to look out for on Steam (mostly) when the first backlog is done....

Wait. >_<
Click to expand...

Wait... you were involved with Super House of Dead Ninjas? Congratulations then, because it's an awesome game, which I have recommended in the past and might even have secured you a sale, even. :)

beastmode said:
Edit: Seen a lot of buzz for Miasmata, Starseed Pilgrim, Cart Life. All at the bottom. Weird.
Click to expand...

Yeah, having played a bit of Cart Life (and being slightly overwhelmed, but also extremely impressed at how human the game feels), I'm disappointed to see it so low. I also plan to get Starseed Pilgrim in the future and expected to see it higher. But I guess more recent games are at a disadvantage as word of mouth hasn't really spread fully yet.
 
I've played most of these, but I wholeheartedly disagree with anyone who voted for Dear Esther on the grounds that it's something that should have been a short, written story.
 
Nice work. Now start working on genre based indie game voting for future madness.

I was expecting Critter Crunch, Sequence and Papers, Please to get higher results based on the discussion revolving around them in this forum.
 
Just so someone complains about Dwarf Fortress being the most underrated game on this list:
Because.. Dwarf Fortress.

Great job Weltall ;)
 
Weltall Zero said:
OK, provided banners and OT links for all the first 11 games (except VVVVVV, which strangely seems not to have an OT). Platforms/pricing/other links coming in following days, I'm exhausted and should probably be in bed now. :S



Wait... you were involved with Super House of Dead Ninjas? Congratulations then, because it's an awesome game, which I have recommended in the past and might even have secured you a sale, even. :)
Click to expand...

I think this is the VVVVVV thread http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=19242122
 
kazebyaka said:
Mount & Blade is not indie at all too, same with Flower. I think there are a lot of games on this list which have no place there.
Click to expand...

I think we discussed all these issues in the voting thread. This is the part about Mount & Blade.
Mavromatis said:
Mount & Blade is produced by TaleWorlds Entertainment, legally known as &#304;kisoft in Ankara, Turkey and they have 25 people working. First game was a hobby game designed at the Bilkent University's cyberpark. And the artworks were done by his wife, so I assume that it still counts as indie. Except Fire & Sword, they said that only the multiplayer is done by TaleWorlds and rest is done by some Russian firm.
Click to expand...
 
I think the new challenge to GAF should be to beat the games with 3 and 2 votes on this list. I know that there are really good games there, I voted for some of them.
 
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