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.
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Crimzon Clover: World EXplosion. Top 3 shmups of all-time and best shmup on Steam, IMO.
You might like !shmups@lemmus.org
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.
Tails Noir was a cool little game! I really liked it. 🤩
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.
Monster sanctuary (turn based monster collector) and Roboquest (arena shooter) were a couple from recent years that stood out to me
For older games nethack and dwarf fortress are great if you can look past the graphics
Monster Sanctuary was so good. I tried it when I had Game Pass, and I loved it so much I bought it outright for Xbox, and then again on Steam. Also got the hardcover monster journal.
Aethermancer, made by the same folks, is looking really good from their demo. Clearly lots of inspiration from Monster Sanctuary but very much its own sort of game
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.
Stardew Valley
Lethal Company. It was developed by one person, yet it outsold Call of Duty. It trended from 2023 to 2024, but I still play it at least weekly. A couple Lethal Company clones have since come out and some say one (R.E.P.O) is better, and graphically I would say yes, but nothing quite matches Lethal Company’s charm.
It’s a scrap-collecting + space horror survival + comedy game. The comedy feels very unintended and that’s why it’s so fucking funny. You encounter very horrifying creatures, then see your friends die the funniest death. Then you hope to collect enough scrap to survive another day.
The monsters in REPO are worse somehow.
Not sure if its because its relatively easier to stun/kill/hide from them or of its because their mechanics are lacking in some way compared to lethal company’s, but I feel as if they don’t have the same sauce.
Bro yes. That game is so good. Wish I could get my friends to play more often lol.
I guess either Shovel Knight or Hades
Shadow Empire. Best 4X wargame ever. 400 page rulebook included. Realistic logistics and planet generation 6000 years in the future!
Factorio.
Honourable mentions:
- Chants of Sennaar
- Blue Prince
- Animal Well
- Raft
- Citizen Sleeper
You might like !factorio@lemmy.world
subscribed, thanks!
You might enjoy Heaven’s Vault since you’ve played Chants of Sennaar! It’s languagerific.
Janky though at times, movement wise
thanks, I’ll check it out!
Cave Story, the original 2004 version.
I played it a long time ago and I still think about that game from time to time.
The OG. The fact it was all done by a single dude blows my mind. People often praise Toby Fox for the same reason, and he definitely deserves it, but he wasn’t good at programming. Pixel was good at everything: programming, music, writing, and art.
Cave Story is undoubtedly the greatest Metroidvania made to date of which I know.
Cave Story really isn’t a metroidvania. The path splits at points, but there’s very little choice where to explore. It’s just a platformer action shooter.
My favorite metroidvania has to be Aquaria. Vibes of the game are on point. The story is great for a game in that genre, and the traversal and combat are unique and tons of fun. Soundtrack is phenomenal.
Check out Gato Roboto if you want a metroidvania similar to Cave Story!
I tried a bit of Aquaria but couldn’t get into it… Thanks for the Gato recommendation. I didn’t know it was CS-like.
I am having a lot of fun with Timberborn and Big Ambitions.
Timberborn is a colony builder where you are in control of beavers. You have to survive between times of good water, bad water, and no water.
Big Ambitious is a business sum in new York make by the same person who made Startup Company.
Dave the diver! /s
But seriously I’m a real sucker for platformers, and so A Hat In Time is my most favorited one. It brought back this sort of charm I haven’t felt since the n64 days and I love it!
Stray and Kena: Bridge of Spirits are pretty awesome too, would be my second and third favorites
Most of what I play is indie and choosing a favorite is too hard, so instead I’ll go with biggest playtime. Antimatter Dimensions, also on Steam, has quickly shot to having the highest playtime of my Steam library. It is an idle/incremental game. Bonus points: free! Most of the idle/!incremental_games@incremental.social I have played have been free in the browser without IAPs, and seem to have been made by one or a few people.
Not counting that, I’d probably have to go with Stardew Valley.
free in the browser without IAPs
Like what else?
- Idle Formulas
- Kittens Game
- untitled shark game, if you are stuck on which one to play I recommend at least starting with the original (bottom choice)
- PokéClicker
- Advent Incremental, I had more fun doing this around Christmas time but it is also playable off-season
- The Idle Class, game was probably intended as cynical political commentary on problems with capitalism, but my oversensitive “dammit yes I agree with you but I want to enjoy a game without dooming about the world” self was able to play just fine without getting sad or angry or hopeless
- Fundamental
- A-Z Inc
- Swarm Simulator
Lots more I cannot remember off the top of my head
It’s probably between stardew valley, rivals of aether, or cheaper world.
There’s also a number that are almost perfect like wargroove, peglin, and kingdom rush.
Rivals was such a fun/approachable platform fighter. Still is
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.
