What are some hidden indie gems nobody knows about?

Submitted ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨CoconutKnight@feddit.de⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

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.

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Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Starsector: It’s an Elite style open world space game. What makes it special is that it’s been in constant development for over a decade and has a crazy number of ships, weapons, lore and features. That and a vibrant modding scene.

Also the devs are vehemently against DRM, so there only place you can buy the game is their own website. Or not buy. They put the full version up for anyone to download.

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- ICastFist@programming.dev ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’ll have to check that out. An indie game in a very similar vein is Evochron Legends. It’s available on Steam, too. I have a couple of hours in it, but it’s been a while since I last checked it.
  
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Ashen44@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Crosscode is one of my favourite games of all time. It’s an immensely charming action RPG heavily inspired by the 2D Zelda games. It has some absolutely insane combat and surprisingly challenging puzzles. The story is also very good and really touching at times. The devs spent 7 years making this game and I feel like it never got anywhere near the attention it deserved.

It’s just $20 on steam AND it has a free demo, so there’s no reason not to check it out!

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solitaire@infosec.pub ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Citizen Sleeper - From the same publisher as The Pale Beyond, it’s another one of those story games that borders on visual novels. It’s a game about precarity and personhood set on an anarchic, decaying space station. Gorgeous art, fantastic soundtrack and it’s uniquely hopeful. Might be favourite game of the last few years.

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Mirodir@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
In decreasing popularity (estimated by me):

Creeper World: A mix of tower defense and rts (with pause function) against a ever expanding goo called creep. The fourth installment is 3D and the next one will be a side-view spinoff.

Tales of Maj’Eyal: Quite popular among the people who are into traditional roguelikes, but I very very rarely see it mentioned outside that community. It’s definitely the (nearly) traditional roguelike I put the most time into thanks to its class/ability system that bridges the gap between roguelike and turn based rpg really well.

The Captain: Technically not indie as it was published by Tomorrow Corp (of World of Goo/Little Inferno/etc. fame) instead of the devs themselves. A mix between old school point and click game, but as a highly episodic space adventure. You travel from planet to planet on an overarching mission and each planet has its own interactive short story. Some are longer, some are very short and you never quite know what you’ll find before you land. All of the short stories have multiple endings depending on how you tackle the moral dilemmas it throws at you.

Infinity Wars actually released before the rise of Hearthstone and also before the popular Avengers movie of the same name. It is to this day one of my favorite digital TCGs, and I played so many of them. Before I get into the main thing that I love about it, I wanna mention that every single card’s base version (colorless) is free, anyone can build any deck for free the moment they pick up the game and be 100% competitive with everyone else. The only thing they monetize is bling. Unlike in most mainstream TCGs both players do their turns at the same time in secret, once they both lock in, their moves play out. This gives way for some insane mindgames and outplays that eclipse those in any other TCG I’ve played. It is a bit rough around the edges, so it might be more of a “hidden diamond in the rough” than a hidden gem.

Bombernauts is a really fun party game. To sum it up in one sentence: “Imagine if Bomberman was a platform fighter.” If you have friends to play with it, buy it on a sale, crank powerup drops up to the max (they stack, which took us hours to figure out), maybe download a mappack and I’m sure you’ll have a blast if the trailer looked any fun to you. There’s virtually no chance to play it with strangers through as it is super dead.

Lastly I wanna give a shoutout to Clonk. Clonk is (or was) a 2D sidescrolling game-series that is visually reminiscent of Lemmings. The gameplay is a sort of mix between Minecraft or Terraria (predating it by many many years) and very very very low-pop RTS. It’s a mission based game where you control around 1-3 Clonks (the lemmings) and has full online multiplayer support. The missions can range from “build a base in this active volcano”, “take out the enemy team’s castle”, “win this wizarding duel” to “build a bridge across this canyon”. What made it truly unique was the community and community creations though. It was created with the explicit purpose to be customizable and users made many, many different maps and modes. It was to me what Minecraft was to the kids in the generation after me (without all the content creators, of course). Some people made an entire RPG in it. Others made what was essentially Among Us, just to give you an idea. Sadly the spiritual open source successor Open Clonk could never recapture the magic for me, and I guess I’m not alone in that because it pretty much died around 5 years ago. If I could make one game popular overnight, it would be Clonk. It did warm my heart to see that some of the celebrated custom map/mode creators from back then ended up getting into gamedev. One of the games developed by someone I remember from back then is Vintage Story.

Holy fuck I rambled a lot about Clonk and I still feel like I’d have so much more to say but this isn’t the most fitting thread for that.
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- ooli@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  shoutout to nice explanation and link. I’m like 5k hours into Tales of Maj Eyal, and confirm it is excellent, especially after unlocking the adventurer, which allow to combine any of the 100+ skill trees.
  
  I will try Infinity war, seems up my alley and less grindy then MtG
  
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Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
They are hidden, so I don’t know about them. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.

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kaosof@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Blasphemous.

Fantastic metroidvania meets soulslike game. The art style, the lore, the atmosphere, and by God - the music!

The combat is not super great, but it’s capable enough for a metroidvania.

I haven’t played the second one, I hear it’s kinda hit and miss.

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cafuneandchill@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Beacon Pines – a charming mystery story with anthropomorphic animals. Has an interesting take on the visual novel formula by having you unlock new dialogue choices as you progress the story; that way, you just naturally explore different paths the story might take. Night in the Woods and (possibly) OneShot fans might like this one.

Oolite – a solid FOSS remake of 1984’s Elite. Has a bunch of mods for it; some expand the gameplay quite substantially.

Orbiter Space Flight Simulator – imagine a Microsoft Flight Simulator game, but you’re going to space instead. Or Kerbal Space Program, but without the rocket building mechanic. That being said, KSP fans (and fans of space in general) should enjoy it.

Transcendence – Star Control II meets Rogue. A cult classic in the space sim genre that’s been in development since 1995. Space dogfighting, trading, mining, smuggling etc, but also traditional roguelike stuff like unlabeled barrels and containers (= undiscovered potions) and permadeath (optional). Highly moddable, uses XML as the modding language. Has a free version (see link) and a Steam release, which includes the paid expansions.
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- spirinolas@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I was playing Orbiter long before KSP came along. It taught me all I know about orbital mechanics. It helped ease the learning curve in KSP a lot. But after KSP came along I completely lost interest. KSP is a lot more fun and there’s a lot more to do.
  
  Still had a laugh when my friend who made fun of me for playing orbiter ended up buying KSP, getting frustrated, rage quit and asked for a refund.
  
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  - cafuneandchill@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    For some time, I considered Orbiter to be better at providing an arcade experience of “choose ship/scenario and fly away”. But now that KSP also has scenarios, maybe this argument doesn’t really stand now. But I still think that Orbiter’s MFDs are better than KSP’s manoeuvre planner (at least for precise manoeuvres)
    
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marlowe221@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Cloudpunk - A cyberpunk driving/walking simulator with a good story, great voice acting, LEGO-inspired graphics, and a Blade Runner inspired soundtrack. It’s dripping with atmosphere and I wish I could play it again for the first time.

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- lmbk@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I liked this one a lot. Waiting for Nivalis to come out.
  
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slin@feddit.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Hypnospace Outlaw

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Contramuffin@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Hacknet. You play as a novice hacker who investigates the disappearance of a character by hacking into other people’s computers to gather information.

The hacking mechanic is fairly realistic and requires you to use the terminal a lot, so it really makes you feel like a hacker. Pretty short and sweet game, and the soundtrack is pretty good as well

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- cafuneandchill@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Oh, I really love Hacknet! Played the main game and the DLC. Discovered it one day while browsing Rémi Gallego’s (aka The Algorithm) discography, and found out that he did some tracks for the OST
  
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- marlowe221@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I bought that game and haven’t started it yet. But your description of it makes me want to do it now!
  
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taiyang@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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- micka190@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  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!
  
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  - taiyang@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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.
    
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DarkGamer@kbin.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
the Skyrim total conversion mod, Enderal: Forgotten Stories, blew me away, and it's free if you own Skyrim. Even has its own installer and game page on Steam.

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popcar2@programming.dev ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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M137@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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 GitHub Sadly I’ve yet to see any mods, spinoffs or anything else come from it.

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Cybersteel@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Black Souls 2

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Razupaltuf@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Null Gravity Labyrinth for everyone who likes labyrinths

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kby@feddit.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
LBreakout[1] is the best Arkanoid clone, period. There has been many attempts by Taito (or Square Enix by proxy) to reboot the franchise but each of their releases just flopped terribly because they keep removing features that people come back to Arkanoid for (the latest PC release, Eternal Battle, has no level editor). In similar vein is Apotris[2] (whose developer is being hunted by the Tetris Company like a fugitive the last few months) is the greatest iteration of Tetris IMO, and it is open-source and developed by a one-man team.

[1] lgames.sourceforge.io/LBreakoutHD/ [2] akouzoukos.com/apotris

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ICastFist@programming.dev ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Unciv for Android. It’s basically Civilization 5, but FOSS.

Shoutout to Iji, too. Amazing soundtrack and lots of replayability. It’s an old game by now, but it’s also free. Sidescrolling platformer, killing is optional.

Assault Android Cactus. Dunno how well known the game is, but it’s one of the best twin stick shooters/bullet hell I’ve played, with the android girls full of charm.

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- johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I recommend Nex Machina if you enjoyed that one.
  
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  - ICastFist@programming.dev ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Uh, which one? I mentioned 3 games
    
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mlg@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Superfighters (original web game) and Superfighters Deluxe (on steam)

Really good 2D platform brawler based around weapon drops.

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ooli@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
rogue Lords: it is inspired by Slay the Spire (StS). Card game with roguelike element. Here, the cards are replaced by your minions skill. But the right set of skill is less frustating to build than in StS. Making it a more fun experience, and the graphics are way above StS(not hard). As in StS , with luck/skill you can manage to build some 'infinite deck" where you never let go of the control of the battle.

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silentknyght@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m currently totally hooked on Tiny Rogues.

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hasnt_seen_goonies@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Skator gator is a really fun 3d platformer. It has some time trials that I got into when I never care about things like that. It’s cute and controls very well.

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B0NK3RS@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Ostriv, an 18th century city building game. I believe it is just the single developer based in Ukraine.

Live For Speed, this one isn’t quite “hidden” but is overlooked by many as it is not on any storefronts. Sim Racing history and still going strong today with the 3 original devs.

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ivanafterall@kbin.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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BiggestBulb@kbin.run ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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