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.

  • helpmyusernamewontfi@lemmy.todayEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    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

  • tobis@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I really love Supraland, but it’s hard to convince people to try it for some reason.

  • B0NK3RS@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Live for Speed

    I’ve been playing it on and off for over 20 years now with some definite highs and lows but I have nothing but respect for the devs (3 people) and community. It’s not on any store fronts and they just do their own thing.

    LINK

  • Elevator7009@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    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.

    • embed_me@programming.devEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Same but with spelunky 2

      In my thirst for difficult games, I 100%'d it. Took more than a 100 hours but still the most fun I’ve had mastering a game to that level of expertise

  • NONE@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Hollow Knight

    I love it so much that I can’t finished, I always stop when I’m about to fight the final boss. I just don’t want it to stop.

    Maybe when Silksong came out I finish it once and for all.

    • Deconceptualist@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Hollow Knight isn’t exactly over when you finish the story. There are more flights, especially Godhome. If you can beat all that you’re an incredible player.

      You probably know this but just wanted to make sure you’re not unintentionally missing out.

  • gurnu@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Exanima Unique physics-based isometric dungeon crawler also featuring an arena career mode.
    Moddable.
    Really slow development cycle, though.

    Severed Steel Futuristic 3D shooter with maybe the best movement system I’ve tried, with wall running, full 360 air movement, sliding and more.
    Weapons have only one magazine, so you’re constantly sourcing them from your enemies while blasting holes into the fully destructible levels.
    Very replayable.

  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.networkEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    From the top of my head

    • crawl stone soup. Classic traditional rogue like. Less fiddly than net hack, but very good.
    • untitled story (an older game by the main person behind Celeste. Looks like Ms paint but is utterly charming)
    • everything supergiant did. Hades, bastion, pyre
    • binding of Isaac is a classic.
  • Nailbar@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Top of my list right now is Vintage Story! It’s like a serious version of Minecraft, with more focus on realism.

  • Sunsofold@lemmings.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months 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
        0·
        2 months 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.

  • Noxy@pawb.socialEnglish
    0·
    2 months 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.

  • Donebrach@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Currently it’s Bellwright, among many other titles. what particularly tickles me about it is the shitty ai voices they used for the npcs. I am not pro ai by any means, but nothing makes me happier than hearing “all in a good days of work.” delivered constantly, in the most off-kilter reading imaginable.