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Every year is great for indies, but 2016 has been exceptionally awesome

lt519

Member
Missed Brut@l, under appreciated game :/

That, The Witness, SteamWorld Heist,and Abzu will hit my Top 10. Didn't get a chance to play INSIDE yet.

Edit: do Brut@l and Abzu not count?

Anyway fantastic year full of games i still want to play like Oxenfree.
 

robotrock

Banned
Yeah it's been 100% amazing.

Thumper and The Witness...may as well throw both of those on a list of The Greatest Video Games of All Time.
 
Yeah, this year has been great for indies.

The Witness, Inside, Enter the Gungeon have all been fantastic, still have a lot to catch up on.

Oxenfree seems to be the next one I need to play, need to pick that up soon.
 
Agreed, I've had a great time with the output indie devs have put out this year; Mother Russia Bleeds, Enter The Gungeon and Grim Dawn alone more than make up that list for me. I am going to throw out some love for a few other games:

-The Deadly Tower of Monsters (The ACE Team)
-8-Bit Armies (Petroglyph)
-Heart&Slash (AHeartfulofGames)
-Neon Chrome (10 Tons Ltd.)
-Okhlos (Coffee Powered Machine)

I could name more and I still want to play The Final Station, it's been a great year for indie games.
 

Anung

Un Rama
Fantastic year. Virginia is probably in my top ten of 2016. I really need to play Inside and Superhot.

Is Aragami any good?
 
Wasn't N++ last fall?

I like Rocketbirds 2, Darkest Dungeon, Hyper Light Drifter, Enter the Gungeon and Salt & Sanctuary. Still need to pick up Headlander, Mother Russia, Owlboy and Inside at some point. All my OMG faves and big excitements are from years past already.
 

Skikkiks

Member
Unravel
Severed
Abzu
Amplitude
Clustertruck
Firewatch
Va-11 Hall-A
Inside
Oxenfree
Omnibus
Momodora
Thumper

First five are looking to be in my Top 10 GOTY, haven't even got to other games like Owlboy, Planet Coaster, Quadrilateral Cowboy, Rocketbirds 2 or Headlander yet.

Now I want to play that Television game.

2manygaems
 
If you wanted distilled space dogfights inspired by Tie Fighter, you need to play House of the Dying Sun. The combat is stellar, as is the sound design. Lean interceptor combat without filler or fat
Each mission is precise tactile strike, a blend of macro strategy and tense combat from within your sleek cockpit.

There are no map to travel, no trading or hangars to buy a better fleet, no smaller jobs to build up your reputation. House of the Dying Sun has stripped away the time-consuming aspects of the genre to focus on its strongest aspect: interstellar dogfights with touch of fleet tactics. In the hand-crafted campaign, you can order the ships in your fleet to defend, attack, zero in on your marked target, and so on, before seamlessly switching to one of your interceptors.

These fighters are fast and agile, able to maintain momentum while turning on their axes to fire at pursuers with missiles, torpedoes, kinetic autocannons, flechette spreadshot, and other high-powered weaponry. The combat oozes atmosphere due to stellar sound design: your weapons unleash muted rumbles and thuds with each shot, mechanisms whir and hiss when you reload, as wingmen chatter emanates from tinny speakers and your pilot's breaths rasps from his oxygen mask.
 
My games of the year so far:
Severed
Deadly Tower Of Monsters
That Dragon, Cancer
Firewatch
SuperHOT
Furi
Bound
Hyper Light Drifter
Inside
Virginia
Aragami
Thoth
Thumper
House of the Dying Sun
Abzu

Still got Samorost 3, Quadrilateral Cowboy, Owlboy, Headlander, Oxenfree, and Rive on my backlog to determine where they fit in my favourites of the year.

Didn't know about ISLANDS, that seems interesting in a Mountains kind of way.

I would need like a few weeks of holidays to get through all of this along with Shadow Warrior 2, Mafia 3, Doom, Titanfall 2, and of course Dishonored 2. Good lord.
 

Wozman23

Member
THUMPER will not be topped for quite some time. I hyped the hell out of it, and it exceeded my wildest expectations. It's number one on my GOTY list. Next on the list come Unravel and Soft Body. Headlander and Seasons after Fall rank pretty high as well.

Grow Up wasn't another solid release for August. I just got done with it. Now I'm working on Rive. Hyper Light Drifter and Hue are next in the backlog.

Is Aragami any good?

I really enjoyed it, and I don't even like stealth. It's got a real old-school feel to it, but gives you the freedom to play however you'd like. The art style is really great, and the mechanics are a lot of fun to play around with. It does have some minor technical issues - mainly with its framerate - and some of the encounters -mainly the boss battles - can be a bit frustrating, but there's a lot to love about it.
 

Bronetta

Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
I cant recommend Enter the Gungeon enough for fans of Roguelikes. It filled an empty void left by Binding of Isaac.
 
Ever since I played ori and the blind forest, not many things have come close.

If you guys had to recommend 5 indies from that list what would it be? And not undertale..I put 2 hours into it and stopped, it's too primitive for me.
 

xviper

Member
you forgot the best one of them all, Salt and Sanctuary, a Soulsborne clone that is better than the Boring Souls 3
 

Rathorial

Member
Indie games have been consistently doing well for years, but this is the first one where it was weaker than the year before for me.

Some good games, but few that would be among my favorite experiences this year. Quite a few of the interesting ones still in early access (Torment, Everspace, Distance, Subnautica, Divinity: OS2) , and not v1.0 yet. Some were just personal letdowns for me like Necropolis, Slain (even the better patched version), Nekro (got cancelled) and Hyper Light Drifter. Admittedly some I haven't dived into like House of the Dying Sun, Offworld Trading Company, Owlboy and Darkest Dungeon...but no indie game is even in my top 5 this year, just mid-sized to big games. Which is pretty weird to me given there was always something indie in my top 5 since 2012.

Still, 2017 looks like an insane banner year filled with releases: Divinity: Original Sin 2, Torment, Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, Tokyo 42, Mr. Shifty, Pit People, Heat Signature, A Hat in Time, Death's Gambit, RUINER, DESYNC, Cuphead, Yooka-Laylee, Below, Pyre, Katana Zero, Oxygen Not Included (early access at least), etc. Should be great.
 

Stoze

Member
Yeah I'd put down all my favorites in here but then I'd basically just be listing my top 10 for the year and then some, and most of them are already mentioned. Only thing I don't see mentioned in here is Deadbolt, which I still haven't picked up yet but looks really neat, made by the Risk of Rain devs.

Its been a tremendously strong year for games and that's excluding some of my initially anticipated stuff like Rain World, Cuphead, and Below that got pushed back/never got a release date.
 

oneils

Member
Lots of discussion about 2016 being "year of the shooter" or "year of the jrpg" and now maybe "year of the indie?" It has been a great year. But for some reason I have spent most of the year playing older games. This year is going to extend my backlog something fierce.
 

Stoze

Member
Indie games have been consistently doing well for years, but this is the first one where it was weaker than the year before for me.

I mean it all comes down to personal taste and what games you end up playing during the year. Personally for me this year was exceptionally weak in the AAA/AA realm, Doom is honestly the only thing that will probably end up landing on my top 10, even top 15 list. I've got high hopes for Dishonored 2 though.

Lots of discussion about 2016 being "year of the shooter" or "year of the jrpg" and now maybe "year of the indie?" It has been a great year. But for some reason I have spent most of the year playing older games. This year is going to extend my backlog something fierce.

Hopefully it'll be the year where the indie label starts to dissolve and people just refer to them as games instead of as a genre or something that makes them regret getting Playstation Plus.
 
Ever since I played ori and the blind forest, not many things have come close.

If you guys had to recommend 5 indies from that list what would it be? And not undertale..I put 2 hours into it and stopped, it's too primitive for me.
What kinds of games/genres do you like?
 

Maximo

Member
Yeah seriously I enjoy indies more then any AAA/AA game these days, Overwatch and indies take up most of my time.
 

kevin1025

Banned
I cant recommend Enter the Gungeon enough for fans of Roguelikes. It filled an empty void left by Binding of Isaac.

Enter the Gungeon and Nuclear Throne are my time waster games. I won't get super far in them, but damn if I don't love the fifteen or twenty minutes I put into them in between other things.
 
What kinds of games/genres do you like?


I'm open to all things but...I don't like things like gone home, stardew valley and undertale. I thought the witness was just ok..

Generally speaking I have a hard time connecting with games that visually look like they belong in the early 90s ala stardew valley.

I LOVED inside, firewatch, and ori.

I think I like visually beautiful platformers the most.
 

Unicorn

Member
Next year will see CRAWL and Drift Stage and potentially GRiP and STRAFE will continue the trend of amazing Indie efforts.

This year has been fantastic and I can't wait for Planet Coaster!
 

Decado

Member
Enter the Gungeon and Nuclear Throne are my time waster games. I won't get super far in them, but damn if I don't love the fifteen or twenty minutes I put into them in between other things.
I put in a dozen enjoyable hours into NT, but could never get past 5-3, or whatever it is. Great game.
 
I'm open to all things but...I don't like things like gone home, stardew valley and undertale. I thought the witness was just ok..

Generally speaking I have a hard time connecting with games that visually look like they belong in the early 90s ala stardew valley.

I LOVED inside, firewatch, and ori.

I think I like visually beautiful platformers the most.

Owlboy and Momodora seem like easy recommendations, then. If you've got a Vita, Severed is amazing. Hyper Light Drifter, too.

Virginia might be out of your comfort zone, but it's a very interesting narrative adventure.

Thumper is just recommended for everyone to try out, and it's challenging as hell.
 

swarley64

Member
Ever since I played ori and the blind forest, not many things have come close.

If you guys had to recommend 5 indies from that list what would it be? And not undertale..I put 2 hours into it and stopped, it's too primitive for me.

Let's see... The Witness and Inside are easy recommendations. Everyone seems to love those.

I feel like I may be the only one, but I really, really liked Death Road to Canada. It's just a great chill out game, with awesome music and a great sense of humor.

And for the other two spots, I'd probably have to go with Super Hot and Hyper Light Drifter. Very unique games that are well worth your time.
 
The only one on the OP's list that I have played so far is Hyper Light Drifter.

I would still call it the best year ever for indie games, because Hyper Light Drifter is possibly my game of the year. I love that game so damn much.
 
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