The Top 10 Best Indie Games of All Time

Sometimes that best games that come out maybe ones that you have never heard of. There have been thousands of indie games released in the world of gaming.  So many that it can be difficult to keep track of the ones that are truly something special.  We did the research to find the 10 best indie games in the genre you might have missed out on.

10: Undertale

Undertale Gameplay

This game may have simplistic graphics, but it makes up for it with in-depth content and intriguing gameplay.  It is a feat in its own that a person named Toby Fox created the game pretty much all by himself. In Undertale, players take over the character of a human kid that has fallen underneath the surface of the Earth and must find his way back through the magical wall that separates Earth from the underground. Players will have to fight many monsters in order to get back to the surface and must face the difficult choice of killing the creatures or trying to subdue them in an effort to spare the creature’s life. This is just one of the many choices that players are faced with that will affect the overall course the game takes. This is an intriguing game that no indie gamer should miss out on.

9: Don't Starve

Don't Starve Gameplay

Don’t Starve is a classic indie game that many gamers have fallen in love with over the years.  In the game players are dropped into a mysterious land with no recollection of how or why they got there.  There is no time to figure out though as the land is filled with dangerous creatures and a haunting night that is deadly if light by fire is not kept up all night long.  Players must battle hunger and sanity to stay alive while they try to figure out how they can escape the world.  There will be plenty of items needing to be crafted to help players survive and thrive in the deadly world.  There is a number of characters to choose to play as in the game each with their own strengths and weaknesses.  Another awesome feature that has come to the game later after its release is Don’t Starve Together that allows for cooperative play with friends.

8: Darkest Dungeon

Darkest Dungeon Gameplay

This game has the player manage a group of heroes to explore a variety of dungeons below a gothic mansion that the player has inherited. The game combines a turn based fighting style with a bit of real time action to keep things interesting.  A key feature in the game is to balance each hero’s stress level.  The stress level rises from a combination of factors including long periods of combat, certain curses, and damage to the hero.  Higher stress for the heroes will lower their stats and make them weaker. Players must be careful how they use each hero because once the hero is dead they are gone for good.  This adds a level of severity to each mission as the best heroes have probably leveled up a lot through combat with higher stress levels. The game allows players to take 4 heroes on each mission and recuit up to 25 heroes. Heroes with high stress will make themselves an easy target and once the best heroes on the team is gone it can become very difficult to rise back to a powerful squad.  This makes for an interesting strategy while trying to banish the evil from the dungeons below.

7: Banished

Banished Gameplay

Banished is a town building simulator that is built around trying to get a group of banished colonists to survive the harsh environment that they were thrown in.  Players will have to gather crucial resources like wood, iron, and food while making sure not to slave drive their people to the point of revolt or dying of exhaustion.  There are so many things that can kill of settlers in this game just like in real life.  Sickness and starvation are some of the most common culprits to losing the game.  It is this realism that really sets this indie game apart from its AAA counterparts.  Many AAA games are afraid of having too much difficulty to attract a large volume of gamers.  Banished has chosen to cater to those who want a challenge when keeping a town alive and to get a reward that truly feels worthwhile because you know how hard it was to get a stable town going.

6: FTL

FTL Gameplay

Faster Than Light is a game in which players must guide their spaceship through a number of challenging scenarios.  These scenarios will test the wits of players as they must manage the crew in crisis to respond to damages that can lead to the demise of the whole ship such as fires in the engine room, atmosphere leaks, and more.  There will be a number of enemy ships that will set out to destroy the player’s ship.  The combat that takes place in the game deals a lot with a rock, paper, scissors function meaning that players will need to strategize well to ensure they have the correct weapons to fend off their adversaries.  The different decisions made in the game may seem small at the time, but play a big part in the success or failure of the mission.

5: Limbo

Limbo Gameplay

Limbo’s plot has a shroud of mystery to keep gamers guessing. The game begins when a boy awakens in a forest on the edge of Hell.  The boy must try to find his sister in the forest and will have to solve puzzles and combat mysterious foes to find some answers. The game is a 2D platform side scroller that can draw some similarity to Trine titles. The game’s focus is atmosphere and puzzle solving.  Puzzles will sometimes have to be done with no objects to assist you while others in the late game will require several different tools you will find on your way.  If you are a problem solver who loves a challenge, check this game out.

4: Paper's Please

Paper's Please Gameplay

Paper’s Please is a game about an immigrant worker in a world where tensions between two neighboring countries are high.  The player is an immigration inspector who must use a variety of tools like fingerprint scanners and background searches to find out if each immigrant has any malicious intent in their motives. Some of the types of people the player can run across are terrorists, criminals, and drug runners.  There are also people with no vaccines, people with missing documentation, and expired papers that will cause the player to have an internal debate on what the right choice is.  The regulations that the player has to follow continuously changes as the game progresses to become more complex and challenging. To really shake things up players can take bribes for letting bad people through to make more money.  Money is needed to sustain the player’s family.  Too little and the family starves, but too much illegal money can have the police coming after you.  Paper’s Please has thought of all angles when showing off what it must feel like to be a real immigration worker these days.

3: Prison Architect

Prison Architect Gameplay

Prison Architect is a game in which players take over as a manager of a prison.  Duties involve providing decent enough housing and food for inmates as well as ensuring there is ample security for the prison’s walls.  The tricky part in this simulation is finding the money to balance all the pieces needed.  Money is earned based off inmate numbers, but one must spend large amounts of money to increase the size of the prison and its facilities.  There is a balance that must be found between adding more prisoners to make money and making sure the prisoners already there are under control.  Prisoners are very quick to get out of hand if they don’t have their needs met or if they are just problematic people which of course are worth more money to the player.  These prisoners can start gangs, sell drugs, kill other inmates or guards, and even start a riot.  The challenge is rewarding though once a perfectly mapped prison is erected from the hundred of failed attempts.  To see a prison that works flawlessly to put criminals in jail and under control is a feeling like no other.

2: Factorio

Factorio Gameplay

Factorio is, as the name implies, a game about building the ultimate factory.  This is not just you run of the mill factory though.  This factory will find its own resources, research technology, build massive infrastructure, and fight off the creatures who are threatened by the factory’s presence.  This game provides an excellent building simulator with enough combat mechanics to keep players interested and motivated to build faster.  Players must be conscious of both maximum production and safety when building their sprawling factories.  Players that expand half-hazard will be destroyed by the creatures while players who build too slow will fall to internal failures from lack of production.

1: They are Billions

They are Billions Gameplay

They are Billions is the perfect zombie experience for any gamer, noy just the indie game enthusiast.  In this game players must lead a group of survivors into a formidable force against the zombie onslaught.  At first zombies will come in rag tag forces, but more zombies will come as the survivors grow in size.  Food, wood, and other resources will be needed to build a base in this game meaning some survivors will have to produce while others will have to fight.  This is an interesting challenge when survivors grow less quickly than the player would want.  Perhaps one of the greatest feats of the game is the surprisingly smart zombies.  Players can build their base however they want, but if a single weak spot is left the zombies will somehow sniff it out. This game is priced under $30 and contains a lot more content and depth than many AAA titles out there. That is what makes it one of the best indie games that you might have missed. If you did, then you should check it out now.