Indie game tips

Much agreed on the Trine games (particularly the second one, smoothes out a lot of the rough edges of the first), very fun and utterly gorgeous to boot.
Also agreed on Dwarf Fortress, which is an utter mess as an actual game, but just a wonderfully glorious insanity

SpaceChem is probably my favourite indie game ever. It's a puzzle game about fake chemistry; and yeah, it's pretty damn inaccessible and sells itself very poorly, but once you get into it, it's just brilliant. What's great is that its puzzles are so very open-ended, so it's not about figuring out what they want you to do, but about manufacturing your own solution. However, it is HARD and massively time-sucking, and can make a certain sort of personality get dangerously obsessive with trying to figure out solutions, to the detriment of both work and sleep.

Bastion is also amazing - really good mix of fun, simple gameplay with a fantastic narrative presentation and impressive polish

For excellent not-really-games-but-semi-interactive-narratives, both Dear Esther and To The Moon are absolutely top-notch - they're certainly not for everyone though

And I don't know if you can really call it indie as such, but a big shout-out for Stacking (by Double Fine, but it's short and cheap like an indie) - not a challenging game by any stretch, but a very clever concept carried out really nicely. Very much recaptures that Psychonauts sort of vibe.

EDIT: I also want to recommend Barkley, Shut Up And Jam: Gaiden. It's one of those things that probably was a joke at the pub that was funny at the time, and then got taken waaaaay too far. It should be utterly terrible, but somehow the whole thing works and is both actually quite fun as a game, and completely hilarious. I think it's because the whole ridiculous thing is done with such a determinedly straight face. Also it's free!

Others that I would recommend as worth a look: Zeno Clash, Rock of Ages, Defence Grid, Orcs Must Die, World of Goo
 
It's a visual novel and very short, but I loved Analogue: A Hate Story (though the previous games by the same author, Digital and Don't Take it Personally Babe are available for free so it probably better to start with them)
 
I went ahead and downloaded it to give it a go. It's a neat little game but I think it's only worth the $15 if you're going to play multiplayer, single player is a little bleh. I was hoping it would be kind of like Lost Vikings in the sense of picking a team and switching between them for various tasks, but I can't find a way to change guys in single player without getting your current guy killed, so unless you die you're stuck with who you picked. I feel like this game would be sweet in co-op but I'm mostly a single player kind of guy and in single player I don't think it's worth $15.
Thanks for the input. It doesn't seem to be for me either, going by videos.

I'm surprised so few seem to have played or enjoyed Faster Than Light. It's a great game, some Amiga feeling to it. I really hope they expand the experience somehow, maybe through expansions.
 
FTL is boss, one of the best 10 dollar bills I ever forked over in terms of hours of enjoyment per dollar spent. Hopefully these guys will make another game.
 
FTL is really fun I spend a long time in that.

I can't beliave no one has mentioned the indie classic Aquaria yet, its probably one of the best indie games ever made with excelent soundtrack/narration and oldskool feelings, if you think you would like journy or something like that you should definitly check it out.

My top list: (in a special way)

Rank 1:(the very best indie games I played and liked the most)
FTL - Took up many of my lunch breaks
Aquaria - Played through the entire game 3-4 times
Kerbal Space Program - Afraid of starting it one more time, last time an entire weekend gone missing, including the nights.
Minecraft - Fell in love with survival mode, even run my own server today.
Terraria - Excelent simple oldschool 2D minecraft sadly not as deeply developed.

Rank 2:(I liked a lot, reeks of quality but never really returned to to play more yet)
Bastion - Very good quality, excelent soundtrack and narration.
Trine 1/2 - Same as above, just add insanely well made 3D graphics as well.
Braid - Will turn your brain inside out.
Harvest - An unique take on the Tower Defence genere with added resource collection, expand or die.

Rank 3:(Good ones I played in the past)
Hoard - Excelent arcade action, greed satisfying. (Later updates replaced the excelent sound track with a horrible one :< )
SPAZ - I really love these kind of games, if only they didnt add zombies, that ruined it for me.
Magicka - Liked it a lot for a few days, but after realizing one spells was wastly superior, it turned into a one spell game and pretty boring.
Fly'n - Amazing 2D art but it gruadualy turns more and more complex in terms of gameplay mechanics to the level of confusing.
Don't Starve - Fun challenging survival game with an old style feeling.
Chime - Nice musical puzzle game, lacks content sadly.

Have played a few more but this will have to do for now. :)
 
I don't see Hotline Miami on hear yet.
A frantic, gory, arcade-like shooter well worth the money for the 80's inspired soundtrack.
 
Endless space is indie, although IMO you're better off getting one of the Sword of the Stars games as they are much deeper. I hope they vastly improve the battle system in ES2 though, because ES1 has a lot going for it even if it isn't as deep.
Anyone played the binding of isaac?

Don't waste your money on it. Its a really mediocre game (apparently the story/theme gets good later on, but the gameplay itself is very basic and it is quite literally a glorified flash game and not a very good one). Plus the developer is a bit of a narcissistic douchenozzle.
 
We should start compiling a big list of strategy games with sub genres (turn based, 4x, rts, indie) and make it a sticky in this forum. Don't have to limit it to strategy either, could add action, rpg etc, but strategy makes sense as a start for this forum. For instance I had never heard of age of wonders or homeworld until I started posting here.
 
Show me a link to a wikipedia page with a comprehensive list of strategy video games and I'll gladly read it. The strategy video game page just lists sub genres and some example games, not a list of titles.
 
Don't waste your money on it [The Binding of Isaac]. Its a really mediocre game (apparently the story/theme gets good later on, but the gameplay itself is very basic and it is quite literally a glorified flash game and not a very good one). Plus the developer is a bit of a narcissistic douchenozzle.

I have not played it myself, but I've heard a good few people talk about it and praise it highly. The consistent thread being that the game rules are simple, but the game play is deep and rewarding.
 
Holy mother of awesome... look at those lists. There aren't quite as many 4x games as I thought there would be.
 
Amnesia really isn't as scary as people say it is. It is really creepy, and does get genuinely scary, but people often grossly exaggerate it.

I stopped playing Thief: Deadly Shadows during the asylum level, I was that creeped out by it. Amnesia would probably scare the living daylights out of me!

The Tradewinds series of games, World of Goo, Pathstorm, Elementsand Crazy Machines were all pretty good indie games that I've played.
 
I stopped playing Thief: Deadly Shadows during the asylum level, I was that creeped out by it. Amnesia would probably scare the living daylights out of me!
To bad that the Asylum was the only really cool level in thief 3...
:(
 
I liked the mansion level. That was pretty cool. (Even thinking about replaying the asylum level makes me instantly decide not to once more!)
 
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