Given the big swathe of posts about bad behavior from big companies, I figure we could counterbalance that with some positivity about stuff the smaller guys made that often costs us less too.

  • mohab@piefed.socialEnglish
    2·
    1 day ago

    Crimzon Clover: World EXplosion. Top 3 shmups of all-time and best shmup on Steam, IMO.

  • TipRing@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    Absolute favorite is Outer Wilds. The only thing I don’t like about it is that I can’t experience it again. A true masterpiece of a game.

    After that, probably Noita for sheer insanity. Deeply unfair, but getting a god-run going is that much sweeter. It took me ~100 hours to beat it the first time, now I can consistently win if I try but I’m addicted to doing stupid things to see what happens.

  • Sunsofold@lemmings.worldEnglish
    12·
    4 days ago

    I play, almost exclusively, non-AAA games. Some gems, known and hidden:

    • Autonauts and Autonauts Vs Piratebots - Cute automation games
    • Spelunky - Elegantly simple and well executed platformer
    • BPM: Bullets Per Minute - Rhythm FPS. Others have tried. None I have found have been as good.
    • Immortal Redneck - FPS roguelite
    • Ziggurat - FPS Roguelite
    • Receiver II - Unique FPS roguelike. Every part of everything that moves is simulated. The hammer on your gun hits a firing pin which hits the primer on the cartridge. You can get stovepipes, misfires, double feeds, etc. You don’t reload by hitting ‘reload’ but go through the full manual of arms in a shooter where the tolerances for failure are fairly slim.
    • Valley - running game. The feeling of letting a hill propel your running to otherwise impossible speeds, bottled. Nice little story too.
    • Dredge - Lovecraftian fishing game.
    • Tunnet - lovecraftian network technician simulator. Build a network to allow communication between computers in an underground society with unspeakable horrors occasionally destroying your mind/body.
    • Opus Magnum - Programming puzzles
    • Vagante - roguelike with tight tolerances
    • Ruiner - Cyberpunk slash n dash with a soundtrack half by Sidewalks and Skeletons. Very fun.
    • Tails Noir - Detective story. Normally find the anthro thing a bit tiresome but this was pretty good. Well written.
    • Elderborn - First person brawler
    • Webbed - be a peacock spider. Rescue your lady spider. Help insects. Fight a bird. Dance.
    • A Story About My Uncle - Movement game. Jump, dash, grapnel. Simple and elegant.
    • Tormentor X Punisher - Top down twin stick shooter. Everything dies in one hit. All the enemies, and you.
    • Tin Can - Survival game in which you try to keep up an escape pod long enough to be rescued, which is hard when it seems to have been made by the lowest bidder’s lowest bidding subcontractor and maintained with all the loving care of a convenience store bathroom.
      • Sunsofold@lemmings.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 hours ago

        I liked that it wasn’t a parody of itself. Most of the writing could have been unchanged if it hadn’t been anthro themed. And the writing was nice, nothing ham-fisted, and had some respect for the reader. I keep running into games where you’ve just talked to an NPC about how they need you to hit the blue button, and you’ve gone through a hallway of posters saying your goal is to hit the blue button, had a quest marker guiding you there that says ‘this way to the blue button you need to press,’ and your character still feels the need to speak to the air about the need to hit the blue button when you walk into the blue button room.

  • Nefara@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    4 days ago

    Banished, you can’t get more Indie than just one guy’s passion project.

    I don’t know what it is about that game but it really struck a chord with me and I’ve come back to it over and over. It’s my favorite game to play when I’m sick and can’t do anything. It’s relaxing and peaceful and cozy while also being complex and ruthlessly challenging at the same time, so it’s like spinning plates. Seems easy when you get the hang of it but it can all come crashing down if you make a bad enough mistake. It’s spawned some copy cats, and I’ve tried them, but the original just gets me somehow.

    • Katana314@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      The soundtrack to Tunic is so moody.

      I used a few little hints to help with the “true final boss”, but it was a fantastic reorienting of everything, and was glad by then it got away from traditional combat. I enjoyed the core combat too, although I usually don’t even like Soulslikes.

  • Noxy@pawb.socialEnglish
    15·
    4 days ago

    Monster Sanctuary. A superbly polished, extremely fun, and decently challenging metroidvania and monster collecting/battling game. If you played the first few Pokemon generations on gameboy and don’t find the newer games capture that same magic, check out Monster Sanctuary!

    Pacific Drive. A station wagon building amd exploration game set in a STALKER-esque Pacific Northwest in the Olympic mountain range. Extremely original and unique game, and with an excellent soundtrack.

    Hardspace Shipbreaker: spaceship salvage, with increasing hazards and challenges and complexity of ship systems to expertly disassemble. With a pretty cool workers’ solidarity and union struggle type of plot.

    Rimworld. Hundreds of hours lost.

    Stardew Valley. A literally perfect game.

    Terraria. Also a literally perfect game.

    Caves of Qud. Like if Dwarf Fortress adventure mode was actually polished, and also if distant future scifi with mutants and cybernetics and sentient plants and sapient gun turrets.

    Dwarf Fortress. It’s Dwarf Fortress.

    WolfQuest. Wolf simulator set in Yellowstone, with a focus on real world accuracy. So cool to raise a pack and manage territory and hunt and explore and howl a lot

    Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. A brilliantly executed spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio Future.

    Descenders. Crazy fun downhill bicycling game.

  • missingno@fedia.io
    51·
    5 days ago

    • Skullgirls - Still the best damn fighting game ever made. I’ve been grinding for a full decade now, and I’ll be entering Combo Breaker 2025 once again this year.

    • Slay the Spire - The game that ruined all other roguelikes for me. What I love about StS is that it never lets you get complacent, never lets you lean on just one good synergy that will carry you the entire run. You always have to keep adapting, and you have to have a well-rounded deck to deal with enemies that are designed to counter players who try to rely on only one thing. And when I eventually got to the point where I’d had my fill of vanilla, there’s so much fun stuff from the modding community to play around with. Packmaster is incredible.

    • CrossCode - It’s been years since I finished this RPG and its colorful cast still lives rent-free in my head. This is a game that is perfect in every way and adds up to more than the sum of its parts. Fantastic combat, tons of side content, endearing characters, emotionally powerful story, beautiful visuals, amazing soundtrack.

    • Charzard4261@programming.devEnglish
      3·
      4 days ago

      I’m so glad someone’s mentioned CrossCode! Such a wonderful experience from beginning to end. The world really feels alive with every inch of a mal being used to either enhance the story or hide a puzzle! I loved seeing chests and figuring out how to get to them across several maps.

      I’m really looking forward to their next project, Alabaster Dawn. I hope it’s just as good!

    • Elevator7009@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
      13·
      5 days ago

      CrossCode is all about how it plays! That’s why there is a free Steam demo! Go give it a try! Take the best out of two popular genres, find a good balance between them and make a great game. That’s what CrossCode does. You get the puzzles of Zelda-esque dungeons and are rewarded with the great variety of equipment you know and love from RPGs. During the fast-paced battles you will use the tools you find on your journey to reveal and exploit the enemies’ weaknesses and at the same time will be able to choose equipment and skills for a more in-depth approach in fighting your enemies.

      Yeah, I took a look because of your comment. Sounds like something I should try. The art is certainly appealing to me. Appreciative that more games are putting out demos lately.

    • H1jAcK@lemm.eeEnglish
      12·
      5 days ago

      I just beat StS Ascension 20 for the first time this week 💀

  • yoriaiko@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    2·
    3 days ago

    Anything of Soldak - https://store.steampowered.com/franchise/soldak/ : 2 series - space shooters Drox and hack n slash Dins - Super coarse graphics, action, fighting, but their living worlds, like nowhere else. No other game where worlds freely grow based on player actions. Did You ever left main quest for exploration, lvling up or side games, oh well, here, world will not allow You to, as enemies won’t stay idle or wait for You, they do their business.

    Orb of Creation - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1910680/Orb_of_Creation/ Semi-clicker (intense clicker, not much of idle) and immersive mage simulator, where You don’t make Your mage-avatar, but are the mage. Still beta, but already big.

  • inlandempire@jlai.luEnglish
    451·
    5 days ago

    First :

    • Outer Wilds
    • Disco Elysium

    Then :

    • Inscryption
    • Carto
    • Spiritfarer
    • Pyre