Board 8 > Johnbobb ranks every indie game he's ever played

(+) Yeah! (+)

Celeste is one of the best "video game" video games. There's almost nothing which feels that good on a mechanical level and it ensures you engage and get good at the mechanics like almost no other game. The limitations of 2D also mean you can't just cheese it without knowing your shit, and it's *very* generous in not wasting tons of your time like a lot of other hard games. 10/10 best 2D platformer of all time.

20. Blasphemous
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seGW4vdfL7A

There was a time I said I didn't really like Metroidvanias, and that was largely because I never really could get into the Metroid series and I've never been a big concept of backtracking. But once I started playing some indie Metroidvanias, I found myself quickly getting hooked. Blasphemous is the type of game where I probably would've dived in after seeing the initial trailer. It's basically a 2D, highly-detailed pixel art Bloodborne, with the Lovecraftian horror replaced by Catholic nightmare fantasy. I don't think I've seen any other pixelart games that are this outright gory. Boss battles are weird, because some are stupidly difficult, while others are weirdly easy, and I have no idea why. I'm in love with the art style and the most brutal gaming taking on Christianity since the wildly underrated Dante's Inferno game. I haven't played Blasphemous 2 yet, but it's on my list, most likely in 2024.

19. The Stanley Parable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBtX0S2J32Y

I still haven't played Ultra Deluxe yet, but I'm sure even then it can't be a big surprise to see The Stanley Parable rank highly. I feel like this one took off even amongst the people who don't typically care for the first person navigation-type games that are light on the action gameplay. The writing really is just that good. The Narrator is one of the funniest characters I've seen in a game, on a level that feels like he belongs in the Portal series. I think one of the things that really makes The Stanley Parable stand out is that it's, in many ways, a choice-based game, but without it ultimately feeling like it. Every small thing you do differently drastically changes the way the story unfolds, with each path being creative and hilarious.

18. Papers, Please
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyqDa_FpDKU

On the surface, Papers, Please is a pretty straightforward game. It's a fairly simple gameplay loop, but an addicting one, giving you progressively more difficult challenges of deduction to determine if people are legal crossing the border. This requires pouring over every tiny detail to ensure that they match their ID, their papers line up, and more and more things to check off. But what makes it great is highly surprisingly deep it ends up being. You have to act quickly, because you get paid for every successful entry or rejection you pull off in a given day, and less successes means less money to feed your dying family at the end of the day. Then there's stories of people that need into the country for legitimate reasons to take into account. Do you ruin their life to avoid a demerit? Then there are bribes that will let you feed your family, but you can only do this so many times before you screw yourself over. There are attacks, and conspiracies. And then there's Jorji.

17. Omori
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erzgjfU271g

Omori is not the outright scariest game, short of a select few scenes, but it's certainly one of the most haunting, and it's another one that's very hard to talk about without ruining the suspense of it all. Omori is a very cute, very silly game full of fun and memorable characters, much in the way Undertale is (although for my money, Omori is more fun, has more memorable characters and is ultimately heavier than Undertale). I think if you like one of the two, you're almost guaranteed to like the other. Omori is a little emo guy, but Basil is sweet, and Ken is funny, and Aubrey is kind of badass, and Hero's just a great friend, and Mari. This is another one I think I played because some people on B8 were talking highly of it, and it's the kind of game I similarly felt the need to recommend to people immediately.

16. Gone Home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRjJ5LY6tX8

Yes, there are so many games on this list in this genre, but Gone Home was one of the first to do it and to really do it right. It's essentially the reverse of Doki Doki Literature Club. Everything about it adverstises itself as a horror game. You return home to a empty family home, with signs of life everywhere despite everybody being gone. The lights are flickering, thunder is cracking, are there are vague hints at the problems everyone has gone through. The big "twist" of the game is that, spoilers, it's not a horror game. The horror aspects are all easily explainable if you pay enough attention, it's ultimately just a game about returning home to a family that's gone through a lot of character growth while you were away. The beauty of Gone Home is that most of the game, you don't need to experience. You could by all means just skip the worldbuilding and beat the game in like 20 minutes, if you're a boring person who hates fun (and I remember when this game came out, there were a lot of people like that). The bulk of the story you learn is your sister's (one of the first LGBT-focused games to really hit the mainstream), but there's plenty you can learn about the parents too, through the subtlest details. Having such a small location let them put details everywhere. You can follow the dad's story through copies of his best-selling books, time-constraining letters from his publisher, crumpled up book pages in his trash can, and eventually, reprints of his book from a new publisher newly arrived in the garage. Characters that never appear or even have a single line manage to feel fleshed out. One of my favorite details is a note on your bedroom door from your parents, telling you to stop leaving the lights on in every room in the house... because you, the player, are of course doing that, even though doing so irl would be kind of ridiculous.

All respectable choices, although I like metroidvanias and I didn't find Blasphemous very appealing. Maybe because I don't play Soulsborne games, but everything is slow, deliberate, and punishing. There was also a decided lack of clarity on how to play the game (item descriptions? hello?) and for all the time I played I think I got one actual upgrade which turned some random red drippy things into blood platforms. I ranked my indie metroidvanias a few months back, and Blasphemous wasn't even #20 on that. =p

Omori is cute when it's not...doing things.

I replayed Gone Home recently and one of my favorite lines is when the sister says that She-Ra was her gay awakening. That line aged like fine wine lmao

Glad to see shout-outs for Braid, Night in the Woods, Firewatch, and Celeste.

EDIT: overlooked The Stanley Parable and Papers Please too, awesome.

Gone Home doesn't deserve the hate it got, but I never thought of it as particularly good either.

Man I forgot about Gone Home, it seems so quaint now, and also powerfully nostalgic

WazzupGenius00 posted...

My one criticism of Celeste is the strawberry that requires you to know about a secret in Super Mario Bros. 3 to unlock. Nothing else in the game suggests how to do it. Obviously I knew it, but that felt like it was not in the spirit of everything else in the game.

Agreed! I had to look that one up. Great game though.

Omori is great too, haven't played the others listed on this page. I didn't hear many people talk about Blasphemous until 2 came out, but your description makes it seem interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKsqPq4wIEI

Blasphemous is an odd one where if you don't like Souls games, you probably won't like it either, despite it being pretty different. There are other Souls-inspired metroidvanias where I don't think that's necessarily the case, but Blasphemous wears its inspiration very strong

There's just something about hard indie platformers that also give some nods to old-school Mario.

• Celeste with the SMB3 white block-secret.
• Braid with the stage (4-2?) that looks like Donkey Kong's first level.
• Super Meat Boy with the same initials as Super Mario Bros.

Probably more out there, but they're the first three I can think of.

Braid's Donkey Kong level was amazing, especially given that it paired it with the left/right time mechanics.

15. Hollow Knight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSPJXlYjENE

Hey there, another soulslike metroidvania, and I don't think it's a crazy stretch to say it's probably the best one. Again, 2017 was a loaded year for indie games, and I think Hollow Knight caught people's attention the most. For good reason, as Hollow Knight is incredible. The characters are all very memorable, despite communicating in weird bug noises (and also being bugs). The boss designs are easily some of the best I've seen in the genre (Dung Defender is my personal favorite). Beautiful level design. Absolutely gorgeous music (the City of Tears theme hits me right in the gut every single time). I really just don't have much of anything to complain about here.

14. Ape Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6-ChUXSMn8

If you like Hotline Miami and haven't played Ape Out, go do so immediately. It's a similar top-down, action-packed, die-easily style of game, but Ape Out just really clicks with me in such an incredible way. Ape Out just has so much style to it. I mean this art style is just so instantly powerful, utilizing the bold, simplistic color schemes to immediately set the tone combined with a shaky cam feeling. It does so much with so little. And instead of a normal score, you get one that evolves as you play, with jass drum combat that makes it feel like you're playing Whiplash: The Game. Has anyone here played De Blob? Another wildly underrated game, but I always thought the adaptive soundtrack of that series was so revolutionary and I'm surprised so few games have attempted it. You don't have to be a rhythm game to be clever about the impact of the music!

13. Sayonara Wild Hearts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-RyxYcxSQ4

You don't need to be a rhythm game to be clever about the music, but it helps! I would legitimately go as far as to say that Sayonara Wild Hearts is, without much question, my favorite indie game soundtrack (HM to Hollow Knight, Celeste, and one of my top 10), and one of my favorite game soundtracks of all time. Like I don't have much VGM in my main spotify soundtrack, but the entire Sayonara Wild Hearts soundtrack is there. Absolute gorgeous game in every way, to the point where even if the gameplay sucked, I'd still love it because it's such an incredible sensory experience. The gameplay doesn't suck though, it's fast-paced and fun in an interesting action/racing rhythm game style that's unique from pretty much anything else I've played. And when I died I was fine with it, because it just means I'd get to listen to the song again.

And that closes out the 2nd highest tier. There are 12 of my absolute favorite games left in the final tier.

Finally wrapping up the list

The "Among My Personal Favorite Games (Indie or Not) of All Time" Tier

12. Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBJ0ifVtK5c

Where the hell did this even come from? I remember at the 2017 Game Awards (again, 2017 is the year for indie games) I thought Ashly Burch as Aloy in Horizon: Zero Dawn was for surethe favorite to take home best performance, only for it to go to Melina Juergens, a complete unknown who had never acted before (or since) from a small team. Slowly I started hearing a little bit more about the game and it's exploration of mental health, and at that point I had to check it out. First off, yeah, Juergens deserved the win. I mean holy shit, her performance here is near unmatched in gaming, and I have no idea how she's not an actress as her main profession. Just seeing the way she moves her face gives me chills. And the audio design here? There aren't many games I play with headphones on here, as the whispering of the cruel voices in Senua's head just haunted me while playing. It tackles psychosis is a distinctly unique way, combining it with Norse lore, fascinating mechanics and an incredible, tragic story.

11. It Takes Two
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohClxMmNLQQ

Speaking of the Game Awards, ya know, that thing happening tomorrow (or later today, depending on your time zone), It Takes Two shocked everyone two years ago by being the massive underdog and first ever indie game to win Game of the Year. And fuck it, you know what? It deserved it. I've been a big fan of Josef Fares for years (as evidenced by the two other Josef Fares games in this ranking) and It Takes Two is by far, by far, his best work. It Takes Two is a couch co-op game unlike any other. Fares' games break away from basically every other co-op game by refusing to ever give character the same role or abilities. In It Takes Two, that's pushed to its limit, changing the abilities of the player characters every fucking level, always making them distinct from each other, but always in a way that both roles are a blast to play as. There's never one character that feels better than the other, they're just always drastically different and always both fun. The story breaks my fucking heart, but it's also funny and shocking and sweet when it needs to be. Every level feels fully distinct, and there's always so much detail and so many things to find and do that I never wanted to move on to the next area until I was positive I'd seen every last inch of the section at hand.

Johnbobb posted...

15. Hollow Knight

14 slots too low.

I still need to play Hellblade, though. I keep hearing too many good things about it.

Sayonara Wild Hearts is such a hard game to rank (for me) because it's only about 45 minutes long and probably 20 of those minutes are just okay. But then the rest of the game is incredible. The whole Stereo Lovers sequence might be the best 5 minutes in any video game I've ever played. If it kept up that level of quality for like a full hour I think it'd be my favorite indie game, top 2 at least.

counting Hellblade as an indie game is fucking bonkers man, it's by Ninja Theory

Ape Out owns

It Takes Two will probably be played by me and my partner soon. After BG3.

I've had it for awhile but haven't had time to get around to it

WazzupGenius00 posted...

counting Hellblade as an indie game is fucking bonkers man, it's by Ninja Theory

I'm not taking blame for this one!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/235f13b7.jpg

It was made by Ninja Theory but with a much smaller budget and team than most of their stuff

It's true that Cuphead probably had more funding than Senua, but it's still weird to call it indie.

I also wish I could've gotten into Senua more. Was way too slow for me.

Kenri posted...

Sayonara Wild Hearts is such a hard game to rank (for me) because it's only about 45 minutes long

Didn't realize this, I'll def have to play it then. Sounds like a playable album.

foolm0r0n posted...

Didn't realize this, I'll def have to play it then. Sounds like a playable album.

That's almost exactly what it is, and it's fantastic

Although it's only 45 minutes long if you're good at it lol

I think they directly called it a playable pop album in their promotional material. And yeah its great

Johnbobb posted...

That's almost exactly what it is, and it's fantastic

Although it's only 45 minutes long if you're good at it lol

Also doesn't count beating Hardcore mode, which was fun as hell if you like the gameplay.

Absolutely love Sayonara. Top two indie game all time for me. Might genuinely be the best game soundtrack of all time.

New Pony Island, New Golden Idol, and a Brothers remake!

Big night for indies
Now give me Silksong

And a Thumper successor! And a very cute deaf girl game

New Senua game too! Not holding my breath for Silksong though.

Kenri posted...

New Senua game too! Not holding my breath for Silksong though.

Senua 2 is my most anticipated game but I don't own an xbox

and the top 10 is finally here

10. Inside
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDm6PAgNohU

The followup to LIMBO improved upon the formula in virtually every single way. It's scarier. It's more visually impressive and detailed while still keeping a somewhat minimal style and muted color palette. The story Inside tells is surprisingly deep and comprehendable despite being told without any dialogue. Like LIMBO, you're going to watch this kid die a LOT, but in ways even more brutal and sickening than getting impaled by a giant spider. Everything is timed in such a way that it requires perfect precision, not in a Meat Boy/Celeste fast-platforming way, but in a way that makes every movement feel essential to your survival. The things this does with sound just blow me away. I mean, the Shockwave level alone still gives me chills:

https://youtu.be/qd4w_XFFOsk?t=18

And then you get to the ending and holy shit. I mean, I can probably count on one hand the amount of game endings that have startled me more, and can count on zero hands the amount that have disgusted me more. Really just incredible from start to finish.

9. Immortality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8tV-R7Rfhg

The followup to Her Story and Telling Lies is the best thing Sam Barlow has done as a game designer by a mile and I feel like people barely talked about it. Everything that was amazing about Her Story, Immortality did better. The story follows the career of Marissa Marcel, a very promising actress (played by Manon Gage doing incredible work) who starred in three movies that were never released under mysterious circumstances before she disappeared. Instead of listening for words to search for like in Her Story, here you move between clips of her movies (or behind-the-scenes footage) by clicking on items in the scene. This could be people, props, parts of the setting, anything really. It'll immediately take you to another scene/clip featuring that person/thing, but you never really know what exactly it'll take you to, and the clip it takes you to doesn't always make immediate sense. And that's really about the extent I can say about the game, because this is one of the most twisted, complex, and unpredictable stories I've ever seen, in a game or otherwise.

8. Papo & Yo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkrjby0lKRE

Papo & Yo is pretty easily the least played (and probably known) game in my top 10, and it's a damn shame. This is one of the greatest examples of "games as art" I can think of that never really feels like an art game. It's inspired by the real-life story of designer Vander Caballero's love/hate relationship with his abusive alcholic father growing up. You play as a young boy in a very poor town who navigates it by magically altering the surroundings in a surreal, childlike way. Papo, a big, friendly monster appears frequently to help you navigate puzzles and have fun with you, but if Papo sees some magical frogs run by, he'll drop what he's doing to eat them. If he eats them, he turns into a Hulk-like raging monster that will break things and hurt you, so you're puzzles often revolve around navigating the world while not letting him get to the frogs, and when he does, it feels like it's your fault that he's turning into a monster, even when it's ultimately inevitable or impossible for you to prevent. Which is the whole point. The puzzles aren't exactly Baba Is You levels of complex, but their interesting and really feel magical. The soundtrack is excellent and there's one track in particular that always sticks with me: the ending track when the boy finally is forced to give up on Papo, who dies to his addiction. This game made me sob, and not just like normal Disney movie sad scene tearing up, but deeply from-the-chest kind of sob.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38udbIqG0LQ

I remember Papo & Yo being kind of a big deal when it first came out, and then it dropped off the face of the earth almost immediately. Yet another game I should really get around to playing.

Kenri posted...

I remember Papo & Yo being kind of a big deal when it first came out, and then it dropped off the face of the earth almost immediately. Yet another game I should really get around to playing.

it's the kind of game that would've won Games for Impact if it was released today and the acceptance speech would've made the entire audience cry if he got more than 20 seconds

7. A Hat In Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhPrcdjhPdQ

I don't have any of the nostalgia for N64 collectathon platformers that this was made to target, so the fact that I love it as much as I do should serve as evidence as to how great of a game A Hat In Time really is. It was even my Halloween costume a few years ago!

https://imgur.com/C1K4aHb

When I think of pure, unadulterated fun in gaming, A Hat In Time is what comes to mind. This game is an absolute joy to play, with bright colors, goofy and memorable characters, cheery environments, and legitimately funny humor throughout. I mean the dialogue here is great across the board, but the game grabbed me right away with Mafiatown. Excellent level design and hilarious NPCs scattered throughout the level. Also fun fact, I attempted to sketch Mafiatown as a hypothetical Smash Bros. level (in the very very unlikely hope that Hat Kid some day became a playable character):

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/09ebb4dd.jpg

Adding on to that, I drew out whole movesets for Hat Kid as a Smash character (the pictures weren't great though)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/e75bbedd.jpg

Additional fun fact, I did the same for Hollow Knight!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/11e9eb31.jpg

The Hollow Knight pictures turned out much better because I had much more direct reference images

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/ee626810.jpg
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/f61dce59.jpg
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/ea176480.jpg

heh cute. I've seen other Smash trailers for both.

I don't think Obra Dinn has dropped? My guess for whats coming up

Haven't seen Outer Wilds (despite my earlier rant against it) or CrossCode, so I'm anticipating those as likely candidates.

Necrodancer

That Hollow Knight Smash art looks awesome! And this topic reminded me that Hat in Time is on sale atm, I said I'd get it when it was next on sale after the board recommended it.

As for what else is coming, well Outer Wilds seems a given, so I'll guess Shovel Knight (just because I assume you will have played it, and it hasn't shown up yet), Disco Elysium, Edith Finch, Obra Dinn, and... The Messenger make up the rest of the list.

6. Journey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU3nNT4rcFg

Journey was in my top 5 games of all time for a long time. I think that was partially because of how early it was, because at the time this sort of gorgeous, emotional jour-- uh, traversal was pretty rare, and frankly unheard of at this level of quality. A lot of the indie games in the top ~15 here stand out for their soundtracks, and Journey's is among the best of them; Austin Wintory is at his absolute height here. Basically any frame of this game deserves to be hung in a gallery. Over a decade later, it might be how far removed I am from playing it that makes it drop even this far. At the time, I played through the whole thing in one sitting in my college dorm room, and loved it so much that I had my girlfriend at the time do the same, who also fell in love with it. I also think this is one of the best uses of online multiplayer in a game ever. The limited communication is genius; you only have the bare minimum way to interact with your companion, and yet I felt closer to them than I have with pretty much anyone else playing online, to the point that when they started to draw hearts in the snow at the summit before we were forced to depart, it legitimately made me tear up a bit.

5. Outer Wilds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYlpUxFbgTM

We're finally at the top 5, and from this point, the games could honestly be rearranged in any order depending on my mood. These are all games that I would consider among my all-time favorites and have recommended to people enthusiastically and on mass. Outer Wilds is without competition the best space game and the best time loop game I've played. I'm usually one to actually prefer some linear-type structure to a game, even an open-world game, but Outer Wild is the single best argument to the contrary. There is so much to see in this solar system, and being free to discover it at your own pace is absoluely crucial to the experience. I mean, there are so many incredible moments here. One of my favorites is when I flew to the base on the sun after countless tries and got a trophy for doing so, not realizing that you could (and were intended to) teleport there from a different planet. The first time you fall into the black hole? The first time you find the comet and then discover you can land on it and THEN discover your window for landing safely is extremely small and requires dedicated planning? Pretty much every location plays into the time loop in a wholly unique way, and figuring out your plan for each one as you go in is such a wholly unique experience unlike any other game I've ever played.

4. Return of the Obra Dinn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILolesm8kFY

The followup to Lucas Pope's Papers, Please blows that game out of the water in basically every way. Return of the Obra Dinn is #1 on the list of games I wish I could go into blind for the first time again, because discovering everything is such a captivating and enthralling feeling. This is likely the detective-type game that makes you feel the most like a detective... even though you're not a detective, you're an insurance claims investigator trying to mystically determine what happened to everyone on a ship that had no survivors. And instead of a generic "figure out what happened to the ship," you have to figure out the name and position of every person on board and what their fate was based on nothing more than a painting of the crew and a magic compass that shows the last moment of one given person at a time. This is the kind of mystery that's just difficult and complex and weird enough that you feel like a genius the moment you solve it, without it ever becoming frustrating because there's always a new angle to try to approach the mystery. And the story of what did actually happen to the crew is incredible.

I'm disappointed that I missed out on Journey, I wonder what it would be like these days.

The other two are great games indeed. Did you play Outer Wilds' DLC? Although I haven't forgiven Obra Dinn for the four Chinese topmen.

The only one of those I've played is OW, which I've already ragged on. I sometimes wonder if I'd enjoy Obra Dinn, and I always conclude that the sort of puzzles involved would probably just annoy me. Still feel like I'm missing out, though.

I'm very surprised you don't have OW at 1! I feel as though we've talked about it hitting that rank for you before.

andylt posted...

I'm disappointed that I missed out on Journey, I wonder what it would be like these days.

The other two are great games indeed. Did you play Outer Wilds' DLC? Although I haven't forgiven Obra Dinn for the four Chinese topmen.

I did! I'm someone who typically isn't a big DLC guy, but I couldn't resist after how good the base game is

And I admit I used the guess until the game says it's right method to solve them, only to realize after that it could've been solved based on their shoes

HanOfTheNekos posted...

I'm very surprised you don't have OW at 1! I feel as though we've talked about it hitting that rank for you before.

If it hasn't it's been very close, pretty much all of my top 5 are largely interchangeable in their position depending on my mood

Johnbobb posted...

At the time, I played through the whole thing in one sitting in my college dorm room, and loved it so much that I had my girlfriend at the time do the same, who also fell in love with it.

I did this too except my gf could not have been less interested

Johnbobb posted...

The limited communication is genius; you only have the bare minimum way to interact with your companion, and yet I felt closer to them than I have with pretty much anyone else playing online, to the point that when they started to draw hearts in the snow at the summit before we were forced to depart, it legitimately made me tear up a bit.

Aww, this is really cute!

I'm not sure what to expect for your top 3! I feel like most of the greatest hits have been covered already, so maybe it's something kinda obscure.