What are some of your favorite content creators that highlight small indie games? Can be big or small, I’m just looking to find some lesser known games for a change.
Edit: I’m checking all of these out, thanks everyone!
Splattercat gaming. He covers one indie game every day.
Welcome back to the nerd castle, today in the world of indie games we’re looking at …
Splat is amazing. He is my go-to guy when looking for a new game.
If you enjoy watching a maniac break indie games, I can recommend Let’s Game It Out on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCto7D1L-MiRoOziCXK9uT5Q
The titles may look like click bait, but they are in fact not. The amount of time and work put into a casual “let’s break this small survival indie game” video is ridiculous.
They focus on abusing game mechanics and explore the limits on game loops and player guidance in games. Mostly survival, simulation and management games, and not all content is indie. All with a good dose of absurdity.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/channel/UCto7D1L-MiRoOziCXK9uT5Q
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
That sounds like it could be fun!
Only in the souls like niche, but Iron Pineapple covers a lot of often unknown indie games in his series of steam dumpster diving (don’t be fooled by the name, a lot of the games are good)
I found Going Under through Pineapple and it was fantastic, definitely worth checking out every now and then
Northernlion is the indy youtuber goat
Stay pegged gamer
LETSGO
I thought he just played Super Auto Pets
SAP is his current time filler game, but his content is mostly about the banter and less about the gameplay. He is mainly an indie/variety streamer tho
To some degree I think you would like “Let’s Game It Out”. He almost exclusively plays indie and early access games… he breaks them, yes, but that’s where the fun is at.
deleted by creator
https://www.youtube.com/@ClemmyGames
I don’t watch his videos, I just go through the links in the description and watch the trailers on the steam page. He covers a lot of games not all good or unique, but it’s easy to go through. Also if you haven’t been playing many games then the top indie games of the year/decade can be good for you.
Also I found this list on indie general on /v/ or /vg/ a while back, it’s pretty good.
indie Games
2019:
-Baba is You
-Bug Fables: The Everlasting Spring
-Disco Elysium
-Grimm’s Hollow
-Katana ZERO
-Manifold Garden
-Outer Wilds
-A Short Hike
-Slay the Spire
-ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove!
-Touhou Luna Nights
-Unheard
-Wargroove
-What the Golf?
-Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
2020:
-Alwa’s Legacy
-Black Mesa
-Breakpoint
-Creeper World 4
-Cyber Hook
-Damaged In Transit
-Deep Rock Galactic
-Factorio
-Filament
-Hades
-Hylics 2
-Jet Lancer
-Lair of the Clockwork God
-Levelhead
-Mainframe Defenders
-A Monster’s Expedition
-Noita
-OMORI
-The Pedestrian
-Penko Park
-Pumpkin Jack
-Risk of Rain 2
-Slap City
-Spelunky 2
-Tenderfoot Tactics
-There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension
-Umurangi Generation
2021:
-Bonfire Peaks
-Brutal Orchestra
-Chicory: A Colorful Tale
-Cruelty Squad
-Deltarune: Chapter 2
-Dodgeball Academia
-ElecHead
-ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights
-Everhood
-Exo One
-The Forgotten City
-GRIME
-Inscryption
-Kaze and the Wild Masks
-MADNESS: Project Nexus
-Mini Motorways
-Moncage
-Northern Journey
-The Riftbreaker
-Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon
-Time Loader
-TOEM
-Toodee and Topdee
-Unpacking
-Unsighted
-Wolfstride
-Webbed
-Ynglet
2022:
-Devastator
-Devil Spire
-Dorfromantik
-Drainus
-Haiku, the Robot
-Kaiju Wars
-Nightmare Reaper
-Nobody Saves the World
-OlliOlli World
-Patrick’s Parabox
-Rogue Legacy 2
-Scoop Kick!
-Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate
-Supraland: Six Inches Under
-Teardown
-Windjammers 2
-Wobbledogs
sorry for the long list but I hope it helps people find some indie games.
I’ve played or own about half of these, and those I’ve played have been great. To me that means this person is a good curator. Here are a few I’ve especially enjoyed:
- Black Mesa - never played HL before it, and I found it fantastic; in fact, HL2 felt like a downgrade to me in gameplay, that’s how good BM was
- Baba is You - I’m a software engineer, and this totally nerd sniped me
- Manifold Garden - not too difficult, but tons of fun and a very unique puzzling experience
- Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair - only mentioning because I adored the original; this is fun too, but the OG is fantastic; not sure if this should qualify since it was made by former AAA devs
- Slay the Spire - fantastic game, though I found Inscryption to be even better for me since it offers more than just a card battler (StS is rogue like, Inscryption is more complicated)
- The Forgotten City - haven’t played it yet, but it looks like a ton of fun
I didn’t like a few of them (e.g. Jet Lancer), but that’s mostly because I don’t like the genres they’re in, not because they’re bad games.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/@ClemmyGames
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
If you are up for written reviews: Buried Treasure does a very good job of digging up stuff that hardly ever gets any attention elsewhere.
Written reviews are the best, thanks! Looks like I’m going down a rabbit hole, I think I’ve seen one of the games listed from the last year of reviews, and that’s only because I followed a rabbit hole mentioned by a YouTuber that led to me stumbling on it.
Very cool, thanks!
A couple of blog suggestions:
Weird Fucking Games. Guess what that blog is about.
There’s also Virtual Moose, who blogs about a bunch of stuff, but mostly retro and obscure indie games.
Finally, Indie Hell Zone. IDH isn’t updated nearly as frequently as the first two, but there’s still plenty of archives to go through.
Thanks for these! Indie Hell Zone sounds like it would be for laughing at bad games 😅
Vinny Vinesauce quite often will play lesser known games especially on Sundays. I’ve discovered quite a few games through him
Quill18 covers a lot of smaller games.
I quite like Retromation aside from the ones mentioned so far. Some games he’ll turn into a longer series while continually showcasing new titles as well.
FloppySword and Sgtkelvin on YT
Stuff+ generally always has a Prison Architect and one other game series going, then does one-shot videos of random indie stuff in between. He’s also not loud and annoying the way youtube gamers tend to be and doesn’t have a webcam feed covering a quarter of the screen, it’s just about the games.
Specialized in roguelites
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Playframe doesn’t exclusively highlight small indie games, but they do cover a fair number of them alongside various bigger games.
Although, I guess it depends on how unknown a game has to be to “count” as “lesser-known”; I’ve certainly been introduced to games by Playframe, but, it’s not like they’re going onto Steam Roulette or anything.
Some examples of games that I personally hadn’t heard of until they showed up on Playframe include “Worldless”, “Cursed to Golf”, “Frog Detective”, “Say No! More!”, etc. I don’t think any of those are, like, deeply obscure or anything, but, they’re “smaller” indie games in my book.
Also, they’re just really rad people.
I don’t really know what qualifies either tbh, but it’s just easy to only hear about the big stuff coming out. Thanks for the recommendation!
