so, one thing I have always liked about indie games is they often come up with unique gameplay elements or twists on the standard formula that alot of the major studios just wouldn't risk trying




so, I thought I would make a thread where we can share indie titles that we found to have interesting or unique gameplay elements



one i tried at a friends recommendation was called "Recettear", and I found its core gameplay to be pretty interesting and unique.. the easiest way to describe it i suppose is an RPG from the viewpoint of the towns item shop owner, having to decide how to procure items and how much to sell them for and how hard to haggle in order to pay off your monthly expenses..

Good idea! I'll be sure to keep track of this thread.

Some time ago I took an interest in Clandestine. From what I read it's like a somewhat retro co-op Splinter Cell where one player plays the spy (doing the kind of things Sam Fisher would) and the other plays the hacker (a la Grimsdottir). Haven't had a chance to play it yet, but I intend to in the - hopefully - near future. I realise it may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I have a thing for stealth games. I even play stealthy characters in all RPGs that allow me to.

I do like Space Engineers and just bought Medieval Engineers will be getting a major update.

Rebel Galaxy is quite fun with likely the best sound track in a game that I have played since Torchlight 1 and 2. The game has a Firefly feel to it with the music and the design of a couple of the ships. The combat is like old fashioned Naval battles. The large ships are in 2d plane but fighters/gunships are in 3d. You can only fly a capital ship.

The makers of Torchlight 1 and 2 (Runic Games) are working on a new game called Hob which looks interesting. No idea when that is coming out.

Ah, Recettear. Good times promoting the virtues of capitalism, [censored]. Or, uh, capitalism, ho!

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there was Papers, Please, where you play as a border inspector in glorious Communist nation of Arstotzka. You have to check the immigration papers of everyone trying to get into your country, welcome those who have everything in order, and boot (or arrest) those who do not. All the while, you've got your superiors breathing down your neck, new rules and standards to abide by, terrorist threats to deal with, as well as a starving family that you need to feed. And there's a little revolution going on that you may or may not want to get involved with.

And then there's The Last Federation. You take on the role a lone agent (who just so happens to be an awesome four-headed space dragon) in what's basically a spacefaring 4X game in session. Several alien empires are vying for control of the galaxy, but what you want to do is try and find some way to unite them into a single federation. This requires a lot of Machievellian plotting and manipulation on your part to steer their growth in ways that are conducive to your agenda, and how you accomplish that is pretty open-ended. You could help strengthen the military of a warfaring race, urge it to go to war against the others, and then arrange the weaker empires to form an alliance which will be strong enough to fend off the aggressor (and then assimilate its remains into their domain). And it has an expansion pack which gives you some alternative goals, such as uniting the races fast enough to take on a mighty Reapers-esque menace, or discreetly wiping everyone out to form your own empire. Oh, and it's got a really cool combat system that can be summed up as "turn-based bullet hell."

My favorite indie game is probably Legends of Eisenwald, an RPG-strategy hybrid mechanically similar to Disciples III. The units in your party can be individually customized, given different equipment than they have by default, they gain experience depending on how much they contributed to a fight, and like Disciples, upgrade to better units as they level up. The setting is a fictional duchy in the Holy Roman Empire, in a world where magic is real (if not terribly common).

As odd as it is No Man's Sky is indeed an Indie game. It was a nice game and had an interesting gameplay but sadly the novelty wore off FAST.

How about Dark Echo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f7-09Qhl9M
There are some first person games based on the same idea too.

Markimoo!!!! I've actually gotten into enjoying his videos, he also has an awesome DJ voice.

Ori & The Blind Forest: Definitive Edition.

Undertale.

Crypt of the NecroDancer.

Those are the first three that comes to my mind which are interesting and/or amazing.

Actual Sunlight - beautifully depressing. It's possibly my favorite indie of all time. I implore those who can play it to do so.

Underrail. Made by 3 guys over 7 years and it's one of the best rpgs I played in years.


Spent over 150 hours on my first playthrough in the campaign.


Combat is really fun and rewarding.

My only real complaint is that the dialogue system doesn't go that in depth, but I guess it's no worse than fallout 4's minus the shoddy voice acting.

My vote goes to Clustertruck: http://store.steampowered.com/app/397950/

It is a very simple concept: you jump from truck to truck without touching the ground and other obstacles and reach the finish line as quickly as possible. You get points for tricks you do, how quickly you finish a level, etc. that you can use to unlock abilities to help you later on. A little pricey for how much content there is in the campaign, but there is a level editor and you can play other people's maps. All in all, it is great fun and I recommend it.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/211260/, an awesome lovecraftian action platformer second only to ori (mentioned above).

http://store.steampowered.com/app/24420/, an underwater metroidvania with beautiful art and an amazing soundtrack.

Has anyone played oceanhorn? It looks lije a zelda game on the xbox.

Looking in my wish list.

Stars in Shadow.


Other than that

Space Rangers

Underrail

My friend's husband is making a game called Lightseekers, which is free. "It features an epic, ever-changing storyline that will be updated regularly so there will always be new adventures, new lands and new characters to experience."

It's based around trading cards with augmented reality, so the cards 'come alive', and accompanying action figures from TOMY that connect to the game.

https://www.lightseekers.com/about/game/

Perhaps you would be interested in The Whisperer in Darkness which is currently available on Steam.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to try a lot, I usually play well known AAA titles, so couple of Indie games that I tried and loved are now pretty known indie games too. Two of those are Journey and Limbo, both had damn good art design, and I also enjoyed Bastion quite a bit. I was also suggested to try out Don't Starve, and there were couple of Torment-like games, but I didn't try any of those yet.

Fall Of The Dungeon Guardians- retro style dungeon crawler with a modern day feel and tabletop levels of gameplay mechanics-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgK0HC3YUDw

The Long Dark- One of the best if not the best survival game i am enjoying. The atmosphere of isolation and survial game mechanics are amazing making me forget the real world and making the game world my reality-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrGo0VafL_s

UNLOVED- a bloodbath of twisted psychotic insanity. Pray for death it is your only... false hope-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAy7IuCiyaM

Well, Pier Solar is an interesting take on old genesis RPGs. Another that I like is Ori and the Blind forest, but this game just refuses to run on XB1. So I keep having to remove it.

Wow alot of hard work is going into this. Love the art design and rich colors along with the advertising style. Tasty

Hope your friend's husband is successful beyond their wildest expectations with their gaming work.

Underrail: which was already mentioned. Great old-school style tactical RPG. Serious difficulty, surprisingly flexible character build system. There are a fair number of viable ways to build your character, but you can also go wrong, and not realize that until you're 5+ hours into the game.

Papers Please: Already mentioned. Great game, kind of a "bureaucracy in a despotic 3rd world country" simulator. Fantastic blend of gameplay and theme.

Age of Decadence: An RPG with role-playing, choice and consequence, and multiple branching paths. Radical gameplay design. You have to play several times with different approaches to see the whole story. Crazy hard combat, but you can actually choose to play as a diplomat and solve issues without fighting. Again, radical design.

Stardew Valley: I don't think this is revolutionary in terms of design or implementation. But every aspect of the game was done well, and I rarely see that with AAA games. Heart, heart, and more heart were infused into every aspect. You can't spreadsheet or project manage that.

Kingdom/Kingdom New Lands: Amazing, beautiful pixel graphics and possibly the most simple interaction in a game ever. Everything is accomplished by giving coins to people in order to manage the growth and defense of your kingdom. Great for about 10 - 20 hours, but then it wears thin.

FTL: This really should have spawned a new genre of tactical bridge management games (roguelike or otherwise), but so far no luck. A few indies have tried, but nobody's gotten it right since FTL.

Minecraft: Yeah, not indie now, but it was when it started. Pretty much created the whole crafting craze in games.

Dwarf Fortress: the behemoth of indie games, and actually, all games. If Sim Earth, Sim City, The Sims, Minecraft, Civilization (kind of), and nethack had a baby prodigy, and that baby had a speech impediment and was a bit funny looking, that would be Dwarf Fortress. Minecraft is essentially a simplified and graphically enhanced version of *one* of DF's subsystems. The menu system and UI is horrific, the whole game is ASCII, but it's got more gameplay, AI, world-building and depth then we'll see from any other game in our lifetimes.

Another Indie Game I've enjoyed was The Cave, it's this cute story driven puzzle platformer which you take three out of seven characters (The Hillbilly, The Adventurer, The Monk, The Twins, The Scientist, The Knight and the Time Traveler) and each of these character have their own unique levels and you have to solve the puzzles all while collecting that character's story. The Characters have both a good and bad ending all depending if you take or leave that character's desired object. It's fun for a few playthroughs.

Speaking of interesting indie games, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJVrquYvGRA is on sale in Steam. Get it while it's... HOT (Don't hit me! )

Bad pun detected https://youtu.be/qLvGnro4Cgw?t=1m5s!!!