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

(+) Yeah! (+)

Johnbobb posted...

but trying to be a cybernetic ninja and then getting one-shot by some random goon as you flop around because something didn't work right isn't, like, the best

It is tho, since it needs to be 3D Hotline Miami to work. But I guess the theming of Hotline is better for this kinda slapstick situation.

I wish more games thought about the narrative impact of your character's durability. On one hand you have stuff like what Johnbobb is pointing out, Metroid Dread is a good example, where you get shredded by small animals even in your giant suit of power armor and it really undermines the character's abilities. On the other you've got the typical joke about JRPGs where your guys can tank grenades to the face in battle but get dropped instantly by a small dagger wound in a cutscene. Obviously it doesn't ruin the games or anything but it really makes me appreciate games where there's some degree of consistency.

What are some games that actually do that? Even "realistic" ones like TLOU or Death Stranding don't do it. Hotline is the only one I can think of and it was shocking because of it.

Metro series on Ranger difficulty.

92. Little Nightmares
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOadxZBsPiA

You've gotta love an accurate game title, because in Little Nightmares, you are very little and it is very much a nightmare. Seriously, this game manages to be creepy in every way imaginable. Creepy porcelain face lady, grotesque giant beings with body-horror distorted limbs. I'm a little iffy with survival horror games in general but I was really drawn in by just how creepy this is the whole way through.

I really liked the aesthetic of this game but didn't have nearly as high of an opinion of the gameplay. I've been meaning to play the sequel for some time now but just haven't gotten around to it.

91. Rocket League
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgSX3gOrj60

Cars playing soccer is the stupidest idea for a game and it is frankly insane that it works this well. And that was before this game started partnering with every brand imaginable. We live in a timeline where Rocket League x lofi hip hop beats to relax/study to is an actual thing that exists and that's truly a blessing.

I liked how this was both immediately accessible and yet completely inaccessible at the same time. You see top level players chaining these insane aerial combos and I'm just over here like "yeah I can hit the ball like 75% of the time I'm aiming for it, so I got that going for me." Stupidly fun is a good way to put it.

LN2 is honestly one of the most insanely good horror games in recent memory, improvement on the original in every way.

foolm0r0n posted...

What are some games that actually do that? Even "realistic" ones like TLOU or Death Stranding don't do it. Hotline is the only one I can think of and it was shocking because of it.

Lots of games are close enough to avoid hurting my suspension of disbelief at least. Stuff like Half-Life 2, most Doom games (except on like the hardest difficulty), Pikmin, the GBA/DS era Castlevanias, Killer7, River City Girls. (These are just random picks I'm not saying they're the best possible examples.)

For games that actually really *try* to maintain consistency, idk, you're right that that's way rarer. Fire Emblem gets close, some of the older games at least (the modern ones, no).

88. A Way Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGZGSdgJVPM

Josef Fares games always have a very specific focus on co-op, and A Way Out is one of the best examples of that, following two prisoners who have to rely on each other to escape. It's plays out sort of like a typical road trip movie, with two characters that initially dislike each other but are forced together due to a shared need, and eventually learn each others' stories and begin to bond. It flew a little under the radar, and while I definitely think it deserves more attention, I get why it's overlooked. It's kind of like Heavy Rain with forced multiplayer, which isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I loved playing it (even though I'm not really close with the person I played it with at the time anymore, but that's how it goes).

87. Guacamelee!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hGPyHacsG0

I'd never been a big metroidvania fan, and Guacamelee! is the game that slowly started to change that. Juan is a great protagonist, the skills you gain shake up the gameplay considerably in a way that is frequently exciting, and the color and style feel like they inspired a lot of indie games to come after. The only thing holding it back is that ultimately the characters and story aren't quite as memorable as similar games that placed a little bit higher.

86. Roundabout
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpfBnMmpQsE

This may be the stupidest game on this entire list and it's one I never would have discovered had it not been free on PS+ one month when I didn't really have anything else to play. The game is essentially Crazy Taxi, only instead of driving a taxi, you're driving a limo, and the limo is always spinning. As in, it is impossible not to spin constantly, and you have to make your way between destinations and around obstacles by timing the spins around their curves to try and avoid crashing into things. All of the story and character interactions are told through live-action video clips of recurring characters, including your protagonist, Georgio Manos, who might be one of the all-time greatest silent protagonist. Seriously, having a silent protagonist in live-action is hilariously dumb, and the dry, absurdist humor of this game just precisely scratches an itch for me. Just thinking about this game makes me chuckle.

85. Minecraft
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmB9b5njVbA

yeah

84. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgcYbc9ZCtQ

Fun fact, and possibly a spoiler for the list, but I've never actually played Yooka-Laylee! From what I've heard, it's not great, and I wasn't all that interested in it anyway because I've never actually played Banjo-Kazooie either. I didn't go into YLatIL expecting much, but I had heard good things from people whose opinions I trust, so I ended up checking it out. And I was not expecting something this good. A lot of indie platformers do the thing where you play a level, and then there's like a slightly harder version of that same level (SMB and Celeste both come to mind) but I don't think I've ever seen a game do it like this, where when navigating the overworld map, the things you change will affect the levels in interesting and constantly new ways. Change the flow of water so that it goes into the doorway to the level, suddenly that whole level is flooded. Flip the doorway over, and the level will be upside down. It is so undeniably cool and gives so much reason to go back and play the levels again.

Minecraft is one of the greatest games ever

83. West of Loathing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG1QcGO_nTc

I know I said Roundabout is possibly the stupidest game on this list, but West of Loathing definitely takes a shot at it. It's an RPG, technically, drawn in the simplest possible 2D stick figure style, and absolutely seems like it's making shit up as it goes along. It'sa western in its absolutely most basic structure, but it sticks to its genre about as much as Castle Crashers sticks to being about medieval knights. The sense of humor is absolutely the draw here, with one of my favorite running gags being that the tavern in every new town you go to and every time you can try to search the nasty old spittoon, and each time the game criticizes you for it in new ways.

82. Tabletop Simulator
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKZVGZEuCHo

This is probably the hardest game on this list to rank, because it's specifically not a game in the traditional sense, but quite literally a simulator of tabletop games. But I have played it more than I've probably played most games on Steam, and have had a lot of fun doing so. I can't really justify placing it higher compared to games that are, in themselves, games, but I also really like it.

and that will complete this tier!

Robazoid posted...

Minecraft is one of the greatest games ever

the fact that an indie game is also the best-selling game of all-time is pretty wild

Johnbobb posted...

the fact that an indie game is also the best-selling game of all-time is pretty wild

In retrospect $2 billion is kinda low for that game

The "These Are Really Getting to Be Something Special" Tier

81. Untitled Goose Game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LL2AtHo1gk

I feel like we're starting to see more of these in recent years; short, small indie games that get absolutely massive among both dedicated and casual gaming communities for having something that is basically self-marketable, whether it's a realistic cat strolling through a future city or a comically cruel goose with a dedicated honk button and a memeable desire to steal. Does UGG live up to the hype? Basically! It delivers exactly what it promises.

80. Subnautica

I have two friends who would likely put this in their top 5 games of all time, and I get it. If you've ever had the desire to explore the sea, Subnautica is basically a must-play, and if you're scared of the sea, Subnautica will make you feel extremely justified in that fear. The main thing that holds the game back for me is the need to constantly return to base, go back out, with more gear and newly discovered goals each time... holy shit is Subnautica a roguelike? No, not quite, because Subnautica isn't fucking randomized every time you go back out, although it might feel like it if you're as bad at navigating as I am.

Minecraft is in my top 5 and Subnautica is in my top 10 games of all time!

Top 5 of the 15 listed I've played:

1. The Witness
2. Subnautica
3. Bastion
4. Binding of Isaac
5. West of Loathing

West of Loathing is not one I expected to make many lists

There are some pretty serious allegations against the creator of that one so that probably dampened discussion of the game

West of Loathing was okay. I got tired of it well before reaching any kind of notable checkpoint, though.

WazzupGenius00 posted...

There are some pretty serious allegations against the creator of that one so that probably dampened discussion of the game

jfc. I played a ton of Kingdom of Loathing as a teenager and this really sucks to learn about.

Johnbobb posted...

If you've ever had the desire to explore the sea, Subnautica is basically a must-play, and if you're scared of the sea, Subnautica will make you feel extremely justified in that fear.

I know it's supposed to be scary (at times) and there are definitely tense moments, but something about the ocean is just like. Anti-scary for me. Kept running into leviathans and going "it's fine they're more scared of me than I am of them" like I was playing a scuba sim or something.

First I'm learning about it too

I feel like this has been coming out about a lot of indie devs lately, like anytime something cool comes out, it turns out the person who made it is just kinda of awful

I mean you just don't hear about the devs that aren't awful, since that's not interesting. But I do think obsessed solo entrepreneur type people are more awful than average.

My "not an abusive indie dev" shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt

Bonus ranking: Lost In Random
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diilMn5gSAg

I remember having this in my wishlist for a long time, and ultimately I don't remember if I ended up buying it on sale or getting it free on PS+. I went into it with high expectations, as I love the art style and themes of the game. The whole thing has a very Tim Burton/Henry Selick feel that I absolutely adore, with an interestingly crafted world where the people are all sorts of monsters mishmashes and all the towns are grouped by numbers, with the queen rolling a 6-sided die on your 12th birthday to determine where you spend your life. The lore of it all really drew me in, but now, about 1/3 of the way into the game (I'm estimating, I've seen it counted as about 15 hours long and I'm about 5 in) I think I need to drop it. As cool as the world is, the combat system is painfully boring and repetitive. It seems cool in theory, being card-based, and you roll a die to see how many cards you can play, but to roll the die you need to collect little energy bits by shooting at enemies (which doesn't damage them), and you end up in this rinse and repeat cycle over and over of running around collecting energy, using it to do a little damage, and then doing that on and on against waves of the same generic enemies, with most of the cards not really doing much that's actually interesting or game-changing. It's not difficult, but man is it a drag, which is a shame because the rest of the game seems very cool. Just not cool enough to justify a base gameplay system I'm not enjoying.

For the moment, I think I'll have to drop this one just below Kentucky Route Zero at 166th, though that might change slightly.

79. Moving Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_IuHhgUlt4

Moving Out is a game you probably won't get much out of playing solo but it's one that will either make your night or drive you insane playing couch co-op. It almost feels like a Mario Party minigame fleshed out into its own full game, where your goal is simply to take all the boxes and furniture from a house and load it into a moving van. Simple in theory, chaos when put into action as all of your well-intentioned plans fall apart. Good way to convince your friends not to ask you for help when they move.

78. Cuphead
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN-9SQXoi50

Like some of the puzzle games on this list, Cuphead is a game I liked everything about except it's difficulty. The style is charming, the art and soundtrack and boss design are all excellent across the board. But the game is so brutally difficult and for what. I think Cuphead is perhaps the number 1 justification for modern games bringing back cheat codes. I played Cuphead until I just absolutely could not progress any further, or at least wasn't having fun trying anymore. But because I liked the game as much as I did, I really wanted to see it through to the end, so I committed one of the greatest sins of gaming and installed a cheat engine, using it to give myself just enough extra health that I could actually progress through the game. Complain about the "true experience" all you want; if my options are playing a slightly easier version of the game and not playing it at all, I'm always going to go with the former.

77. Wattam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbW0MJxOu_Y

"From the creator of Katamari Damacy" was all I needed to be sold on Wattam. It's a bunch of inanimate objects with faces on them interacting in silly ways to unlock more inanimate objects, with the goal of, uh, I think unlocking all the inanimate object people? But that's like barely the goal, the real goal is just to fuck around and be silly. There are very few games that take themselves less seriously than this.

76. NORCO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKtesX4KTxo

NORCO does take itself seriously and is a fucking downer. Except for the time when you pet a dog too much and it explodes off into the air like a rocketship. But then the dog never comes back and people are legitimately mad at you for it. There's like cult conspiracies and sci-fi tech and people fucking die, but sometimes in a haha goofy way but sometimes in a grounded, depressingly realistic way. Trying to explain the tone of this game in a way that makes sense isn't easy to do, but it does have a very interesting web of mystery with some of the most deeply upsetting endings I've seen in indie gaming.

Using cheat codes in a single player game is not wrong

/thread

Cuphead's difficulty is one of the biggest reasons I love it, but I agree with the sentiment that people should be free to play their single-player games however they want. At least most of the time.

NORCO is brutally depressing, such a unique experience to go through.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Using cheat codes in a single player game is not wrong

/thread

whoa, he still had 75 games left. what the fuck

So not sure if anyone would be interested, but the top 2 tiers of the ranking have a total of 25 games. My thought process is, once we hit 25, I could welcome people to try and guess the top 10. I don't have any specific reward in mind for the winner, but could be fun?

Anyway, more rankings incoming

75. Chicory: A Colorful Tale
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJmNCphD_aU

Just a cute little game where you're a silly little dog putting some silly little colors into the world and nothing deeper than that. How fun!

74. Stray
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJawWyRUOBM

Stray took the gaming world, and even some of the non-gaming world, by storm last year. I think TikTok might to partially to blame, as a game where you play as a cat with a dedicated meow button and the most realistic cat-movement animations in probably any game to date is exactly the kind of thing to appeal as a cutesy viral sensation. It was effective enough auto-marketing that Stray got nominated for Game of the Year. As much as I did really enjoy Stray, I do think that might have been a little strong, as Stray never really attempts to alter the industry or even the genre. All that's to say Stray still fuckin rocks and is a pleasure to play.

73. Unpacking
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BG98e_w6d0

speaking of cats:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cZ3WGxiXthM
he's my old roommate's cat and I miss this precious little deaf guy

72. OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aTwDkhDCRQ

OlliOlli World is a great time, but OlliOlli2, which I never would have played had it not been a random free PS+ game at a time I was bored. OlliOlli2 had me instantly hooked. While it doesn't have the glamour and flash of its threequel, OlliOlli2 feels faster and is so goddamn hard to drop. I think what sells OlliOlli for me compared to other endless runner types is the fact that a single button press can instantly reset the level, without even a second of loading, so failures, no matter how many, never make you want to give up. I also absolutely love the environments here, possibly even moreso than the much more characterized OOW.

Ghost is a cute name for a cat.

71. Ultimate Chicken Horse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYaE_xw4krw

This is a fantastic party game to play with friends unless you have a dickhead friend who likes to score one point and then blow up all the platforms and create impassable walls to stop anyone else from scoring. It's designed to be mostly limitlessly replayable, with the randomness really lending to the fun. Each match will usually play out differently depending on what obstacles/platforms/etc. it gives you to choose from. What sells the game for me is how obstacles interact with each other. Glue a baseball gun to a rotating platform and suddenly you have 360 degrees of baseballs flying across the map. Aim a crossbow just beside a black hole and you get a huge, warping orbit of arrows.

70. The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wo3TmI1VwE

My feelings on The Missing are a little hard to explain. As a horror game, I'm fascinated by it, as it's a puzzle platformer that requires you to kill yourself in repeated grisly ways, lighting yourself on fire or breaking your neck to solve various challenges. However, massive spoilers: as an inherently queer game, that does present some issues, as this dives into some dark, dark themes regarding its secretly transgender protagonist (which isn't exactly a big shock if you pay attention to the game's snippets of backstory via texts). Playing a game about a trans woman killing herself is... tough to stomach at times, but it also tackles queer struggles in a way most games never attempt, and definitely never in this way. If nothing else it is distinctly, painfully memorable.

69. Gris
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRiKQIVo7ao

Oh hey, another beautifully-designed 2D puzzle-platformer used as a metaphor for heavy emotional subjects. Gris is a gorgeous game and one that really tugs at your heart as you're literally platforming through manifestations of the five stages of grief. The art style and soundtrack are the exact type of thing that draws people like me toward indie games, and basically any frame of this game feels like it belongs in a gallery.

68. Little Nightmares II
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI9zBBTyX-E

Snake5555555555 posted...

LN2 is honestly one of the most insanely good horror games in recent memory, improvement on the original in every way.

This basically sums it up. Little Nightmares II is a massive step up from the first game, to the point where I'd honestly say if you weren't a fan of the first, it still might be worth trying out the second. The enemies here are more varied and uniquely interesting, the gameplay is more complex and the story is much more than the "escape the monsters while learning vague lore" of the first. I don't want to get into much because spoilers, but the twists this one takes really shook me.

67. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHohBVfhGDU

Another from Josef Fares! His first game and one that pretty much instantly put him on the map. It's also his only game that wasn't strictly co-op, allowing you to play the two brothers with one controller or two. It showed glimpses of what would later become key aspects of his game style: two characters with distinct gameplay differences relying on each other to progress, with a strong story and little bits of characterization in the most inane places. I don't remember if Brothers made me cry but if not it got very, very close.

Fuck yeah Ultimate Chicken Horse. #1 game that makes me wish more of my friends were good at platformers.

The Missing is one of those pieces of media where I'm like, "I would recommend this but the recommendation has a big, big asterisk on it". I think the themes are used well and are very effective, but like... I'm at a place in my life where I can handle them.

on a more lighthearted note, i can really relate to j.j. macfield because I also respond to every minor inconvenience by going "omfg i guess i'll just die then"

Johnbobb posted...

you're literally platforming through manifestations of the five stages of grief.

oh fuck is this what gris was about??? honestly i just went through that whole game going "ooh pretty" but otherwise didn't give it much thought

I've been terrible about updating the last few days but, ya know, holidays

66. Superhot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrS86l_CtAY

SUPER
HOT
SUPER
HOT
SUPER
HOT

What if all the characters from Tacoma were actually attacking you? The game is basically just a single mechanic pushed to its limits, but like, it's a really cool mechanic.

65. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj3dUvGLjNQ

Look, Fall Guys has a cringy social media presence and a fanbase not unlike that of games like Roblox and Fortnite. And as a general rule of thumb, I don't care for battle royale games. The idea of a multiplayer game where the whole idea is that people getting excluded from playing feels kind of counterproductive, especially if you're trying to play with friends (and why the fuck don't games that are strictly designed to be multiplayer have splitscreen anymore?!?!?). Especially when you get eliminated early on and then have to play the early levels over and over before inevitably getting to the end and then losing to someone that has like every premium customization unlocked. Anyway, despite all of that, the game still manages to be extremely fun and addicting. It's basically if they turned the game show Wipeout into a video game (fun fact: they did, but it's just a lesser version of Fall Guys). I don't really play it anymore, but I pretty much always keep it installed just in case I want to boot up a few runs and rage when I inevitably get eliminated.

64. Broken Age
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjJAMM1MyTA

Another Tim Schafer game! It kind of felt like Broken Age was going to be the game that put Double Fine back into the spotlight for the first time since Brutal Legend (which, as I think I mentioned in the Psychonauts write-up, I left off the list since it was basically the only Double Fine game I'd call a AAA game). Broken Age was a massive Kickstarter success, but then I felt like nobody really talked about it after it came out. Did it have the Kentucky Route Zero effect, where releasing as multiple acts over a year apart made people lose interest? It had Elijah Wood! The game follows two stories only connected but similar themes of teenage rebellion; one is an old, ritualistic fantasy village, and the other takes place on a futuristic AI-controlled spaceship. Then Act 1 ends on a big cliffhanger where it turns out these weren't the past/future, they were both happening simultaneously, the big monster the village was sacrificing to was, in fact, the spaceship kidnapping people for DNA experimentation, and at the end of the act the player characters accidentally swap places. Definitely one of my favorite point-and-click adventures.

63. Hotline Miami
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg5s5Dq50Rg

Hotline Miami is an extremely addicting gameplay loop of violently killing entire rooms of enemies (usually in one hit) and dying just as easily. It's not a time loop game, but it might as well be, as that's largely what it feels like, as every death gives you the chance to memorize more of the map and how to kill enemies before they get the drop on you. It's super fun, and gets very difficult as it goes along -- difficult enough that I may have ended up dropping it if the weirdly psychadelic mystery story behind it all didn't keep me so hooked. It's extremely 80s to the point of parody in a Far Cry Blood Dragon kind of a way (which, while I've loved it in serveral games/shows/etc. in the past, I think the 80s-style nostalgia parodies have gotten a little played out now, in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty three).

62. Concrete Genie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoIf3HNI-DQ

Looking back at some of this list, I feel like I ranked Concrete Genie a little too high, but I did really enjoy it. It follows a young, lonely artist kid whose grafitti creatures come to life, which leads to some very cool mechanics as you lead the creatures along the walls. It's very wholesome, the creatures are precious, and I really dig how the neon art shows up visually in the mundane, dreary world.

61. Octodad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVoSYDWX2Ig

Octodad is a tough one to rank, because while mechanically it's a little rough at times, conceptually I fell in love with it right away. Octodad is about as indie as an indie game comes, just being made by a few college students that didn't even have a developer name to throw on it. It has the loose, intentionally difficult controls of games like Surgeon Simulator and Grow Home and applied them to a genuinely genius idea: a man trying to do very simple tasks for his family around his suburban home, but that man is actually an octopus in disguise. It's genuinely endearing and funny in a way many games in this specific sub-subgenre don't manage to pull off.

And that completes this tier, leaving just 4 tiers left.

Bonus Writeup: Horace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhp2PpNS9i8

Just beat this one today. Horace I have kind of mixed feelings about. I mostly really liked it. It's not the most visually impressive game, the music (while well made) got kind of grating after awhile, and it has the Super Meat Boy-type of absurdly difficult platforming, only with chapters and sometimes even an open world. It also added in gravity mechanic, where your gravity is always facing the direction you're in, so you can walk on the walls and ceilings, and often have to use this to navigate otherwise impassable platforms. Except, sometimes you can't? And there's a lot of little quality of life changes it could use. Things like the fact that whenever you die, you respawn directly in front of the last door you entered through, but it's directly in front of it, and the game often takes your first movement immediately as going through the door, and then you have to go back through the door again to get back to the room you were in, and this happens A LOT. The gameplay has so many wild change ups though, occasionally becoming a rhythm game for a couple minutes, and having a lot of old-school NES-type sections, and so on. But what really redeems the game for me (and what ultimately kept me playing even when the gameplay was irritating) was the story, which is bonkers. It's told from the perspective of a robot with a child-like mindset as he experiences being created, forming a family, going to space, travelling through time, experiencing the apocalypse, playing video games, and so on. There's so much happening and it's a pretty wholly unique narrative experience, so it's kind of a shame when it randomly is just like "yeah step over into this room full of lasers and sawblades for a while"

I think I'm gonna drop this one for now just under Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, so #85.

The "Games That Have Legitimately Changed the Way I've Experienced Games In a Way Others Hadn't Done Before" Tier

60. Robot Unicorn Attack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdw0XGAgqUw

For convenience sake, I'm going to include all the different versions and the sequel into this listing, because it had a bunch of slight stylistic alterations that were all basically the same game. There are only so many games I could really consider myself to have been addicted to, and Robot Unicorn Attack is absolutely one of them. Something about the looping "Always" by Erasure and the style of the ridiculously flamboyant visuals and the weirdly satisfying feel of its platforming compared to other similar endless runners. For whatever reason, I just couldn't put it down, and when they started adding additional features and versions it only got me more hooked. I think RUA2 added more songs, including "The Touch" by Stan Bush, one of my all-time favorite songs, and once I had that unlocked, I could sit there singing along and to Stan Bush for hours.

59. Thumper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtPGX8i1Eaw

I can only really describe this as a horror rhythm game? Which is a weird concept but I want to see it done more, because Thumper is a blast. It manages to be deeply unsettling. The visuals are dark and trippy and fly at you at what seems like 1000 miles an hour, with demonic bosses showing up every few levels to loom in the background. It feels like you're a sci-fi spaceship desperately trying to survive while hyper jumping through the universe. When you miss, it's not like Guitar Hero where you get a simple string break noise, it feels like you just got punched in the gut.

58. Storyteller
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MVuffKFbVA

I only have one complaint about Storyteller and that's that it isn't much, much longer. It's a concept that seems like it has endless possibilities, but it's over in just about 2-3 hours. It's extremely simple in its basic structure, giving you a super simple objective like "the prince becomes king" and then gives you a limited amount of locations and characters to work with. Most levels have more than one way to achieve the goal, for instance you could have the prince marry a princess, or maybe have him kill his father, as long as the story is told. I feel like I could play this for ages without getting bored; it scratches a very particular puzzle itch in my head.

Now we're getting some good games. The zeitgeist of Robot Unicorn Attack 1 was incredible.

foolm0r0n posted...

Now we're getting some good games. The zeitgeist of Robot Unicorn Attack 1 was incredible.

it became big enough that every friend I had in high school could sing along to Always by heart, which is crazy for what was basically a browser flash game at the time

There were a lot of great Adult Swim games in that era. House of Dead Ninjas (I actually prefer the original to Super), Lesbian Spider-Queens, Westerado

57. Oxenfree II: Lost Signals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGcL4bcCbSU

ok so this one doesn't actually match the name of the tier, it didn't change the way I experienced games. But Oxenfree did, and Oxenfree II is a very good sequel even if it doesn't quite hit the highs of the original. This weird, creepy dimensional horror is just very appealing.

56. Chants of Sennaar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__hzPH3tcvA

This sort of problem-solving type of game seems to be slowly becoming more prominent in the indie a scene and I love to see it. Chants of Sennaar's main goal is to become a translator for several five different communities of people, each with an entirely different symbol-based language, none of which your character is familiar with. The order in which you navigate each community is open-ended, and you can pick up little bits of context in the way people talk to you, the symbols you see on signs, etc. The most exciting thing is when you can start to decipher how the design of a symbol can explain what type of word it denotes. For example, one language might use a vertical | symbol to suggest the word is a type of person, other languages might have recurring bits of symbols indicating verbs or adjectives or locations. One language uses repeated nouns to indicate plurality (ex. "man man" instead of "men") while others will have entirely different words or symbols to show the same thing. The only thing holding the game back from cracking the top 50 is some entirely unnecessary stealth sections that just distract from the language learning.

55. Deaths Door
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjnEg3ucXpc

I believe this is the last indie game I finished before creating this topic. Death's Door admittedly plays like a pretty standard isometric action-adventure. You've got your melee, your magic/ranged, your dodge rolls, etc. It's challenging but maybe nothing all that new for the genre. It feels kind of like an isometric Metroidvania. It falls into a very nice level of challenge; it's very difficult without ever getting into the zone that it becomes exhausting to try to continue. Where Death's Door succeeds the most is in its lore, as you play as a crow working as essentially one of many beaurecratic grim reapers under the leadership of the Lord of Doors, a godlike being that controls teleportation, allowing the death crows to collect their soul. You're tasked with collecting the souls of ancient and giants to access the door of True Death, and it's all just effortlessly cool and intriguing.

Chants of Sennaar is maybe my #1 game that I wish I had not watched a playthrough of, because over the course of watching it it became clear that that game is completely my jam. But now I can't really play it because I'd remember the general vocabulary. 'whoops'

(also fuck stealth sections, all my homies hate stealth sections)

I love 90% of Sennaar and absolutely hate 10% of it to the point that I quit the game twice. The stealth section was once and now the maze-ish part. So tedious. But they totally nailed the linguistic aspect and I want more of that. They really captured a lot of the different types of real-world languages.

54. From Dust
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkdAssf3kJA

Apparently this one was technically developed by Ubisoft Montpellier, whoops. It definitely felt like an indie game, and it's primarily designed by one guy, Eric Chahi. There have been a lot of these god games to come along, but none blew me away the way From Dust did. Remember that guy from the Miiverse that would just comment on every game saying how good the water looked? That was essentially me while playing this. Seriously, for a $15 2011 game, the environmental manipulation effects were way ahead of their time. You essentially play as a faceless, invisible orb of elemental material, manipulating the earth and rivers and lava to help your villagers survive in a way that is endlessly satisfying. Eric Chahi wouldn't put out another game until 2020 called Paper Beast (which I've never heard of until now).

53. Jazzpunk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrZqGO6iBb8

When I try to think of the funniest games I've played, Jazzpunk pretty much always comes to mind. I have no idea how to actually describe this game. It's vaguely about an undercover 1950s spy that feels kind of like a James Bond/Hitman mashup, but that barely matters. This is quite possibly the most absurd game I've played. None of it makes any sense, but it's hilarious and worth experincing for yourself.

52. Nidhogg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPD0Ya4YWDU'

Nidhogg is really kind of a barebones game. Only 4 levels, all of which are fairly simple. Not much in the way of modes or variety. It's visually not super impressive; there's really not much here at all. And yet, somehow this game has never gotten uninstalled from my console, and I don't know that it will. It is absurdly fun and surprisingly deep for such a simple game. You can sword fight in different positions, block, throw your weapon, pick up dropped weapons, including those of your own dead selves, dodge, move faster if you drop your weapon, break the opponents neck if you're unarmed, and so on. My favorite strategy was the frog method, throwing away my sword to distract my enemy and then getting into a crouch position and rapidly hopping across the levels to make for an easy-to-miss target. For as little as the game has, it is endlessly replayable.

51. Limbo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4HSyVXKYz8

Limbo basically defined indie horror platforming as a genre. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but not by much? Games like Little Nightmares and The Missing absolutely would not have existed if not for Limbo. Tons of puzzle platformers will see the player character die over and over with your little mistakes, but few games do it as horrifyingly as Limbo. Seeing your silhouetted child get impaled by a giant spider leg is the kind of thing that sticks with you, even a decade later.

The list so far:

51. Limbo
52. Nidhogg
53. Jazzpunk
54. From Dust
55. Deaths Door
56. Chants of Sennaar
57. Oxenfree II: Lost Signals
58. Storyteller
59. Thumper
60. Robot Unicorn Attack
61. Octodad
62. Concrete Genie
63. Hotline Miami
64. Broken Age
65. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout
66. Superhot
67. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
68. Little Nightmares II
69. Gris
70. The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories
71. Ultimate Chicken Horse
72. OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood
73. Unpacking
74. Stray
75. Chicory: A Colorful Tale
76. Norco
77. Wattam
78. Cuphead
79. Moving Out
80. Subnautica
81. Untitled Goose Game
82. Tabletop Simulator
83. West of Loathing
84. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
85. Horace
86. Minecraft
87. Roundabout
88. Guacamelee!
89. A Way Out
90. Ghostrunner
91. OlliOlli World
92. Rocket League
93. Little Nightmares
94. Cult of the Lamb
95. What the Golf?
96. Bound
97. Super Meat Boy
98. Toem
99. Pentiment
100. Later Alligator
101. Baba Is You
102. Shank
103. VVVVVV
104. Maquette
105. Bit.Trip Presents Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien
106. Quadrilateral Cowboy
107. The Witness
108. The Beginners Guide
109. Telling Lies
110. Twelve Minutes
111. Superliminal
112. McPixel
113. Machinarium
114. The Looker
115. Entwined
116. Donut County
117. Cook, Serve, Delicious!
118. Tacoma
119. Little Inferno
120. Runner3
121. Psychonauts
122. Maneater
123. Outland
124. Monument Valley 1
125. Runbow
126. Hohokum
127. Brawlout
128. Super Time Force Ultra
129. Sound Shapes
130. Zen Pinball 2
131. Erica
132. Apotheon
133. Fez
134. Afterparty
135. That Dragon, Cancer
136. A Little to the Left
137. Reus
138. Plague Inc.
139. Crayon Physics Deluxe
140. Grow Home
141. The Cave
142. My Friend Pedro
143. Sportsfriends
144. Pony Island
145. Everybodys Gone to the Rapture
146. Cibele
147. Dungeons & Lesbians
148. Bastion
149. Monument Valley 2
150. If On a Winter's Night, Four Travelers
151. Coffee Talk
152. The Binding of Isaac
153. Rime
154. Pizza Tower
155. Mark of the Ninja
156. Skullgirls
157. We Happy Few
158. BattleBlock Theater
159. Tokyo Jungle
160. Florence
161. Abobos Big Adventure
162. Disc Jam
163. Sky: Children of the Light
164. House Party
165. Rubber Bandits
166. Kentucky Route Zero (Chapters 1 & 2)
167. Lost In Random
168. Hue
169. I Am Bread
170. Naughty Bear
171. TowerFall Ascension
172. Happy Wheels
173. Friday the 13th: The Game
174. Human: Fall Flat
175. Foul Play
176. This Is The Only Level
177. Burly Men At Sea
178. Virginia
179. World of Goo
180. Party Crashers
181. Deltarune Chapter 1
182. Sunset
183. Toribash
184. Stephens Sausage Roll
185. KickBeat
186. Tales from Space: About a Blob
187. Quantum Conundrum
188. Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit
189. Escape Plan
190. The Bridge
191. The Swapper
192. Dear Esther
193. Surgeon Simulator
194. Joe Danger
195. Angry Birds
196. here
197. Racing Bros
198. Goat Simulator
199. We Become What We Behold
200. Facade
201. Run Sausage Run!
202. Five Nights at Freddys
203. Interactive Buddy
204. Threes
205. Slender: The Eight Pages
206. KIDS
207. Cookie Clicker
208. Bounty Battle
209. Flappy Bird
210. Hello Neighbor
211. The Unknown City (Horror Begins Now..Episode 1)