Even More Indie Games You Missed (if i had to guess...i can't be sure though)

0:00 I love indie games, and every few years I like to share some lesser known ones

0:04 that I really enjoyed in the hopes that you

0:06 all check them out and enjoy them too, so I’m doing it again.

0:09 Now, every time I do this, I get a bunch

0:12 of comments saying that I didn’t pick obscure enough games,

0:14 and yeah that’s probably fair.

0:16 This time though I am only gonna be talking

0:21 about titles that have thousand or fewer reviews on Steam,

0:25 and one of them isn’t even on Steam, so take that.

0:29 I know the number of Steam Review something

0:31 has isn’t the best metric for this sort

0:33 of thing as it doesn’t perfectly reflect sales

0:36 or account for major releases on other platforms, but it is something at least.

0:39 I also cross checked each game on Backloggd to make

0:42 sure none of them are wildly popular outside of Steam.

0:44 The point is, I tried.

0:46 And ya know what, I think there is a good bet that you

0:50 haven’t played or even heard of most of these games—unless you have,

0:53 which ya know is out of my control.

0:55 So, with that, let’s talk about some indie games you haven’t played, probably.

1:00 The first one I wanna talk about, and frankly it is the reason I decided

1:03 to make another video like this, is Burggeist.

1:05 If I’m being honest, it is kind of a hard game to describe,

1:09 not because it doesn’t fit into a genre,

1:11 but because when I say it's an open-world real time strategy tower defense game,

1:16 I worry that your ears are gonna shut off,

1:19 but I promise you this game has juice.

1:22 The core premise is that you are trying to build

1:24 a tower that reaches the heavens in order to save your wife,

1:28 but whenever you start building one, monsters come to try to tear it down.

1:32 The loop pretty much becomes partially building towers around

1:34 the world to get experience and unlock new abilities

1:37 so that you can more effectively defend the towers

1:39 and eventually get one as high as you need to.

1:42 Of course, you aren’t doing this entirely alone,

1:44 you also have the help of a Burggeist which is a big monster with a slab

1:48 of stone on its back that you can place canons and other things on.

1:51 The effectiveness of many abilities and the Burggeist

1:54 are often influenced by height or distance,

1:56 so whenever you’re defending a tower,

1:57 you really have to understand the general area so you

2:00 can place yourself and the Burggeist in the most optimal spots.

2:03 The slate of abilities that you can get are all neat;

2:07 some are damage focused, others are movement focused,

2:10 a couple are a combination of both,

2:11 and I found myself regularly using everything in my kit

2:14 to efficiently move across the battlefield so I could get proper leverage.

2:17 In case it wasn’t clear from this description

2:20 of the gameplay or the footage itself, this game is really weird,

2:24 but all of its systems tie together nicely and it

2:27 does a great job of making the moment to moment gameplay,

2:30 both when in combat and out of it, feel engaging in one way or another.

2:35 The world itself is mysterious and a lot of fun

2:38 to try to make sense of—I loved exploring every inch of it,

2:41 and using my wide range of abilities to try

2:43 to get to places that seemed impossible to reach

2:45 in the hopes that there may be a secret there

2:48 and was almost always pleasantly surprised by what I found.

2:51 While the story and characters are a bit off-kilter, both are wildly intriguing,

2:56 and I found myself wanting to engage

2:57 with every side quest not just for the rewards,

2:59 but also to learn a little more about the world and those within it.

3:03 Burggeist is the kind of indie game I wish we had more of.

3:06 It is specific and singular in its vision, and feels so incredibly fresh.

3:10 Ghrian Studio is also largely a one person team,

3:13 which given the scale of this game is wild.

3:17 Above all though, it is fun to play, so spend the 12 dollars to get it.

3:25 When I started working on this list,

3:27 I assumed Burggeist would be the weirdest game on it,

3:29 but then I came across Basilisk 2000,

3:32 and it makes Burggeist seem tame by comparison.

3:35 Developed by KIRA, who you may recognize as the devoleper of Lunacid,

3:39 Basilisk 2000 is presented almost like a found footage game.

3:43 According to the store page, a fan came across the files for the unreleased

3:48 sequel to the unreleased SNES game Basilisk,

3:50 and they have created a tool for you to view the various

3:53 levels of it to see the game that could have been.

3:56 If you’ve played Her Story or really any Sam Barlow game,

3:59 its framing device feels similar to those.

4:01 Through using the game engine tool,

4:03 you’ll act as a sort of detective to learn both about

4:06 the game and the story of why it never came out,

4:09 both of which are fascinating to uncover.

4:11 The only way to load a new area is by knowing its name;

4:15 discovering these names sometimes comes down to just paying

4:18 attention to context clues in the levels you do

4:20 have access to but other times will require using

4:23 every potential trick at your disposal to get more information.

4:26 I don’t wanna go in any more detail than that as this very

4:28 much falls into the category of games where the less you know the better.

4:32 I will say compared to things like Her Story,

4:34 this is definitely more about exploration than puzzle solving.

4:37 That’s not to say there is nothing to solve—there are many things to solve,

4:41 but fun of the game will come less from aha moments and more

4:45 from piecing together the story through the things you discover in each level.

4:48 It’s also worth noting that it can be pretty obscure.

4:51 There are clear connections to be made,

4:53 but it is fairly esoteric with how it makes many of them,

4:56 which I imagine for some of you will be exactly your kind of thing,

4:59 and for others will be a bit harder to latch onto.

5:01 Ultimately, what I love about it is that it uses a very cool framing

5:04 device to tell a story in a way that only a video game can.

5:08 It’s weird and creepy and really unique.

5:10 For those of you who love liminal spaces,

5:13 this should be a very welcome game for you.

5:15 You can get it for 2 dollars on itch.io and you can also play its predecessor,

5:19 Basilisk for free which I’d say is a great

5:22 companion game if you find yourself enjoying Basilisk 2000.

5:24 This is one of those experiences that feel so rare to come across,

5:27 and it plays with the medium in such an interesting way

5:30 that I would say it is worth checking out for that alone.

5:33 Moving into the world of far more conventional games,

5:35 the next one I want to talk about is Prodigal.

5:38 If it wasn’t obvious by simply looking at it for a few seconds,

5:41 Prodigal draws heavy inspiration from the Legend of Zelda,

5:44 specifically the more classic 2D games.

5:46 Frankly, while I like the direction Nintendo has taken the series,

5:50 I do often find myself wishing they’d do more in the 2D space,

5:53 and while Echoes of Wisdom scratched a bit of that itch,

5:56 it still wasn’t exactly the kind of structure I

5:58 was hoping for, and that is why I am

6:00 very thankful Colorgrave exists and that they decided

6:02 to build on the Zelda formula in their own way.

6:06 It has good dungeons, some cool bosses, unique items, and a lot of charm.

6:10 One thing that I think makes the game stand

6:12 out is that it has a strong focus not just on being the hero of the village

6:16 but also on creating relationships with the people in it,

6:19 of changing your reputation from someone who abandoned the town

6:22 to someone who is an integral part of it.

6:25 This takes the form of friendships you

6:27 can build as well as romantic relationships,

6:28 which I never thought I’d want in a game like this, but it works well here.

6:32 I don’t know if it is like this with all

6:34 the characters but at least with the one I

6:36 ended up with, the relationship added a new layer

6:38 to the wider story that benefited to the overall experience.

6:42 While the core of the game is solid in its own right,

6:45 I think what really makes Prodigal shine is how

6:47 much optional stuff there is to do that feels worthwhile,

6:50 especially in the post game.

6:52 Like, I spent more time playing after I rolled credits than I did before,

6:55 and there aren’t a ton of games that I find myself doing that with.

6:59 By and large, Prodigal is a fresh take on a classic formula,

7:02 that does a lot to get you to care about the place you’re saving,

7:05 and I found this super refreshing as so many

7:07 games kind of except you to want to save

7:09 a place because that’s what heroes do and don’t

7:11 put in the work to establish reasons beyond that.

7:13 There’s lots and lots to love here,

7:15 and I think it will be a great time for anyone

7:18 who misses the days of playing stuff on their Gameboy Color.

7:21 The next title I originally planned to talk about actually passed a thousand

7:25 steam reviews at some point between me buying it and making this video,

7:29 so in order to skirt around my own arbitrary rule that no one is

7:32 actually going to hold me to, the game I’m going to recommend is Sheepo,

7:35 a 2d metroidvania with smooth movement and a good

7:38 sense of humor developed by Kyle Thompson, and now that I think of it,

7:42 everything in this game really set the groundwork

7:44 for Kyle Thompson’s follow up game, Islets.

7:46 Islets sets you in a world

7:48 that has been fractured into multiple floating islands,

7:50 and you are tasked with bringing them all back together.

7:53 Like most metroidvanias you'll unlock new abilities that recontexualize

7:56 the places you’ve been and unlock new paths forward,

7:59 but what makes it stand out a bit from its contemporaries

8:01 is that as you bring the pieces of the island back together,

8:05 that also opens up new paths and secrets.

8:07 So you go from exploring each island in its

8:10 separated state to exploring it in its connected one,

8:12 and it’s just a neat progression system that keeps the world from getting stale.

8:17 While its mechanics aren’t all that deep,

8:19 everything from its combat to its movement

8:21 to its level design are executed well, making it a super polished experience.

8:24 I played on Hard, which I found to be about the right

8:27 level of challenge I’d want from a metroidvania like this—given its light tone,

8:31 I was hoping for something that’d keep me on my toes but not push me

8:34 in the same way that some other titles

8:36 in the genre tend to, and it did not disappoint.

8:40 Anyway, now that I’ve trojan-horsed Islets into this video,

8:43 I do wanna say that Sheepo is also a good time, and despite how it may seem,

8:48 it isn’t just Islets, but less—it focuses a bit more on the platforming

8:52 and puzzle side of things as there isn’t any real combat.

8:56 Instead, fights are about avoiding attacks

8:58 and getting bosses to hurt themselves.

9:00 It’s cool stuff.

9:01 Kyle Thompson makes really slick games, so I’d say start with Islets and then

9:06 check out the rest of his catalogue from there.

9:08 While we’re in the Metroidvania section of this video,

9:12 let’s talk about Xanthiom Zero.

9:14 It is about as metroidy as a metroidvania can get.

9:18 Clearly the developer, MathanGames has a lot of love for the Metroid series,

9:23 and based on this, especially the older titles.

9:25 However, even with its retro aesthetic and old school sensibilities,

9:29 it does a lot to feel more modern.

9:32 The movement is super responsive, the enemies, especially the bosses,

9:35 are fairly complex and there are a handful of intriguing systems

9:39 to play around with, the coolest being how your gun works.

9:42 Essentially your blaster has various components to it,

9:45 and as you collect different parts,

9:47 you can customize it to yield different effects.

9:51 This can lead to some pretty powerful combos,

9:56 and I had a lot of testing a bunch of them out to find what works best for me.

9:59 What’s cool is while you probably will

10:02 settle on a single combination at some point,

10:04 you’ll still find yourself switching things up on occasion for various reasons

10:08 whether it be to solve a puzzle or take on a specific enemy.

10:14 With all the different components and parts,

10:21 there are thousands of forms your blaster can

10:26 take—obviously some will feel pretty close to others,

10:28 but it’s still a radsystem that provides a ton of versatility.

10:31 I am sure there are other games that have done something similar

10:34 to this, but as I haven’t really played

10:36 something that executes customization in this exact way,

10:39 I found it to be pretty novel.

10:41 Along with the neat weapon customization system,

10:43 the rest of the game is really tightly designed.

10:45 The pacing is solid, the design is on point,

10:48 and the various upgrades you get find use in both the platforming and combat,

10:52 which I think is great.

10:54 Its story is also pretty fun—the whole idea is

10:57 that you’re on a planet where time is unstable,

10:59 and while this doesn’t get used with the gameplay all that much

11:01 aside from it being how your character canonically comes back from the dead,

11:05 I did find it intriguing enough to be invested.

11:07 All in all, it’s a sweet little game

11:09 with a few aspects that make it worth revisiting,

11:12 and it’s like 5 dollars, which given this game’s general quality, is a steal.

11:16 Following that, we've got Sno: Ultimate Freeriding.

11:18 If I am being honest,

11:20 Sno is not the type of game I normally recommend in these kinds of videos,

11:24 or frankly just in general.

11:25 I tend to gravitate towards stuff that is more structured—I

11:28 like games that have clear progression and maybe most importantly,

11:32 an ending, but Sno doesn’t have either, not really at least.

11:36 There are a handful modes each of which asks you

11:39 to engage with the core mechanics in slightly different ways,

11:41 whether it be an infinite run where you go until you crash,

11:45 seeing how far you can get and how many points you can rack up,

11:48 or score attack where you have a set distance

11:50 to get as high of a score as possible; however, as it is an arcade title,

11:55 there is no in-game goal you’re supposed to try to achieve;

11:58 it all is self-directed.

12:00 Sure, you can always look to top the leaderboard,

12:03 but for me atleast, that’s never gonna happen.

12:06 These kinds of games rarely work for me as I

12:09 tend to be an extrinsically motivated kind of player,

12:11 yet I keep finding myself coming back to this one.

12:14 That largely comes down to the fact that it

12:16 nails the exhilarating feeling of careening down a mountain.

12:19 It’s mechanics are simple but there is enough depth

12:22 there to have something that actually takes skill to master,

12:25 and while this certainly isn’t a game I find myself playing for hours at a time,

12:29 it is one I like to jump into when I have just 10 or 15 minutes of free time.

12:34 Whether I’m trying to top my personal high score or coast down the mountain

12:38 in zen mode without any distractions to see how far I can get,

12:41 it is a nice way to spend a bit of time.

12:43 The game is probably best played in 3rd person,

12:46 but it does have a few different perspective options,

12:49 and I actually really like playing in 1st person.

12:52 The naturalistic soundscape and beautiful vistas mixed with the smooth movement,

12:57 brings a sort of authenticity to that perspective,

12:59 and makes darting between trees and pulling off tricks feel so good.

13:04 The developers, Studio Gauntlet, get what makes skiing and snowboarding special

13:09 and have translated it excellently to this medium.

13:12 There is a demo for the game although I have not played it,

13:15 so I don’t know how much there is to it,

13:18 but I’d assume there is enough to get a good idea of what it’s like,

13:21 so I’d say if the game seems interesting to you

13:23 at all at the very least, give that a look.

13:26 Sticking with games focused on nature, next is A Highland Song.

13:30 Set in the Scottish Highlands,

13:32 the game revolves around the main character Moira running

13:34 away from home after receiving a letter from her uncle,

13:37 urging her to come visit him within

13:39 the week so she can witness something truly special.

13:41 So your goal is to navigate the highlands

13:44 as efficiently as possible to hopefully reach him in time.

13:47 I know there are a lot of people who have

13:49 an aversion to any sort of time limit in games,

13:52 but I think it works well here for a few reasons.

13:55 One is that it creates stakes for every choice you make.

13:58 Whether it be where or when you choose to rest or what path you follow,

14:01 you’ll always be weighing whether or not any

14:04 given action or encounter is worth the risk,

14:06 leading to some interesting decision making.

14:08 Also, there is no real failstate—reaching Moira’s uncle is possible

14:12 and satisfying even if you don’t make it in time,

14:15 although making it in time is obviously more satisfying.

14:18 What I think makes it really work though is

14:20 that the game is so densely packed with different paths

14:22 and encounters making it so you can play through it

14:25 multiple times and experience the highlands in entirely new ways.

14:29 It is designed to be replayed,

14:31 so if you don’t reach the goal on your first try, that’s okay.

14:35 There is more than you could ever discover in a single playthrough,

14:39 so you won’t have to just replay the same thing over again.

14:42 And honestly it is worth seeing what else is out there.

14:45 The various locations all have rich history to them,

14:47 and it is a joy to uncover the secrets

14:50 of highlands both in terms of navigation and lore.

14:53 The general presentation is also incredible from the artstyle

14:56 to the music to the narration to the in-game documents.

15:00 All of this helps the world feel realized

15:03 in a way that many games struggle to achieve,

15:06 and that made it easy for me to care

15:09 about the highlands as if it were a real place,

15:12 which it is, but I mean this version of them.

15:15 It is a journey worth having and really

15:18 is unlike any other platformer I’ve played before.

15:21 Inkle has been around the indie scene for awhile now,

15:24 and they’ve clearly taken the lessons they’ve learned

15:26 from previous projects to create something pretty special here.

15:29 Lastly we’ve got Signs of the Sojourner,

15:32 a deckbuilder developed by Echodog Games.

15:34 When I think of games that have immaculate vibes, this one always comes to mind.

15:39 It has a stellar soundtrack, cozy artwork,

15:42 and uses its gameplay in a way that compliments the story being told.

15:46 Instead of its deck building being a way to battle others like it so often is,

15:51 here it is used to have conversations with them.

15:54 These conversations largely consist of trying to match

15:57 symbols with whoever you are talking with.

15:59 Each symbol represents a different approach to communication

16:02 like being empathic or logical or creative or dog.

16:06 Every character you encounter will largely be

16:09 aligned with one or two specific communication styles,

16:11 and as you meet more people and have interactions with them,

16:14 you get to add new cards to your deck.

16:16 Generally speaking, people tend to communicate better

16:19 with those who match their communication style,

16:22 so by adding cards that correspond with different styles,

16:25 you have more flexibility in who you can talk to.

16:28 However, you do have a card limit so adding one means tossing another.

16:31 The main challenge becomes figuring out how to best balance your deck so you can

16:36 have positive interactions with as many people

16:37 as possible while not spreading yourself too thin.

16:40 Having negative conversations doesn’t lead to a failstate,

16:44 but it does influence the things you are able to accomplish in the story,

16:48 and I think the game does some clever things with that dynamic.

16:51 Outside of conversations,

16:52 you also have to actually choose what places you want to go,

16:56 and this adds an interesting layer

16:57 of complexity as everything operates on a schedule,

17:00 so you have to be cognizant of when certain things are happening and how far

17:04 away you are from them in order to maximize the amount of things you can do.

17:08 It is a well-written narrative game with an interesting core

17:11 mechanic that keeps it engaging for its entire run time,

17:14 and given its structure it also has a fair amount

17:17 of replay potential for those who look for that sort of thing.

17:20 I’ve seen it described as a roguelite,

17:22 and while it has some things in common with them,

17:25 I’d say do not expect it to scratch the same

17:27 itch as any of those games—the star here is the narrative,

17:30 so check it out with that in mind.

17:32 Anyway, that’s it.

17:33 Hopefully at least one of these games is both new to you and also of interest.

17:37 And now that I’m done covering a bunch

17:39 of indie games you probably haven’t played, I wanna spend a bit of time talking

17:43 about something related to one that you probably have.

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19:32 Thanks to Lost in Cult for sponsoring this video.

19:35 For all of you still here, I appreciate you.

19:37 I’d like to thank my patrons for making this channel possible.

19:40 Life is weird and you offer a stability

19:43 I wouldn’t have otherwise, so it means alot.

19:46 With that I hope you have a great day and or night,

19:55 and I will see you in the next one.