Best Indie Game You Ever Played?

Okay, I'll admit, I haven't played that many true indie games, ie stuff you can't find on Xbox arcade. Cave story is probably the best I've played, but I suppose that's a pretty obvious one. However, I must say I was very impressed with the Iconoclasts demo; I could see the full game being as good as cave story if it keeps up the level of quality that's already there. A few more I've come across:

Sonic Robo Blast: Really fascinating game, made with the old doom engine; it manages to fuse the game-play of sonic the hedgehog with Fps elements. The levels are huge, and the graphics, while low res, have a strange appeal to them. Really unique.

rRootage: Neat bulletstorm shooter; played a port of it on my psp; really fun game. Enemies are auto-generated somehow, and spout enormously complex bullet patterns. Interestingly though, the bullets often move slower than other bullet hell games, and your ship has a tiny, tiny hit box, so it's possible to really weave in and out of bullets.

powder: By Dan-ball. Just found this a few days ago while reading about 2d physics simulation; literally a 'sandbox' game. Could spend hours playing with this.

Rhythm 8: Not quite a game, but an incredible homebrew music app built for the psp; unfortunately not developed anymore, but it's rock stable and really fun.

Anyway, that's my paltry list. What about you guys?

Knytt and Knytt Stories were both great for their simplicity, for the different take on the platformer (ie, exploring and puzzle solving, no combat to speak of) and the fantastic music really created an atomsphere despite the retro style graphics

La-Mulana. It's easily the greatest and most elaborate game I've ever played.

Second would have to be Eternal Daughter. It was the first indie game I ever played and pretty much got me in to this whole mess :)

The Iconoclasts is definitely next on my list. I'd say more but it's still just a demo, so. Honestly I think it will whoop Cave Story. It was a great game but..come on :P

Was just looking at Eternal Daughter yesterday...I love metroidvania type games, so I can't wait to give it a spin. Kyntt sounds really good too; I think music and atmosphere are two of the most important things often overlooked in games; they can make a very simple game totally engrossing.

Doom.

Doom? An indie? Umm...huh? <img src="smileys/smiley3.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Well at the time, ID software was an indy company, and Doom as a shareware was somewhat of an idny game yes.

But it was a long time ago. A time that the younger can't remember or know. Internet didn't exist, HD TV didn't either.

CD players were the hot novelty and processors went up to 100 MhZ.

A phone looked like that :

<img src="http://www.eurocosm.com/Application/Images/Teleph/746-GREY-lg.jpg" border="0" />

It wasn't mobile, you had to plug it to some line for it to work.

Oh and there wasn't game for it (not really).

Good ol' times ^^

lol the 90's.

Doom? An indie? Umm...huh? <img src="smileys/smiley3.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Yes. And for that matter Rise of the Triad, by Apogee, made with the Wolfenstein engine, is also a blast. And free if I recall correctly.

iD still labels itself as an independent developer, so why not include them in the list of boring games like Knytt? Makes the competition kind of easy, lol, but hey why not? "Indie games" like Flower have dozens and dozens of people listed in their credits (a big fat lol) so a game made a small handful of programmers should count, right?

One day when getting bored, i make some FPS games with Construct 4 and come back to the Scirra Community, seeing Kyatric the old man still there. :D

My favorite is Doom, too. Sometime i got scared by the monsters and just hiding in a corner, let the monsters attacking me in the back =))

rpg maker games mostly. That's what started my interest with game making. :)

To be specific, 'The Way' and 'A Blurred Line' were the best.

I've enjoyed many, many indie games. Some of my favourites include Lyle In Cube Sector, Alex Adventure, 8-bit Killer, Every Extend and lots of other obscure stuff.

Well at the time, ID software was an indy company, and Doom as a shareware was somewhat of an idny game yes.

But it was a long time ago. A time that the younger can't remember or know. Internet didn't exist, HD TV didn't either.

CD players were the hot novelty and processors went up to 100 MhZ.

A phone looked like that :

<img src="http://www.eurocosm.com/Application/Images/Teleph/746-GREY-lg.jpg" border="0" />

[sidetrack]Hey, why not have the best of both worlds:

<img src="http://www.thinkgeek.com/images/products/frontsquare/retrophone_handset.jpg" border="0" />

or maybe...

<img src="http://www.puremobile.com/communityblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/retro-iphone-dial-pic.jpg" border="0" />

[/sidetrack]

Anyway, on topic...I guess 'indie games' is alot like 'indie films'; the difference between non-indie and indie seems more a gradient than a line. I guess I'm think specifically of the mumblecore equvilant titles; one or two person affairs like cave story, braid, iconoclasts, etc. Teams are great, but there is something special about a work of art put together by just one or two people.

hero_bash:

Rpg maker...boy that brings back memories. I had rpg maker 2 for the ps2; no sprites, just crude psx quality 3d graphics. Had a neat heightmap terreain editor and tile based dungeon builder, but the programing structure was god-awful. plus, typing in dialouge with a gamepad is no fun.:/ Still, I spent a couple hundred hours working with it...then I got a demo disc from sony, and once of the demos -- viewtiful joe -- wiped my entire mem card...bad memories there. I played with the pc rpg maker much later, and it was better, but by then I had realized I had no interest in making a classic-type rpg. I did try to play a blurred line once, but I couldn't get it to run; I have no idea why.

mosh:

Hey thanks for the suggestions. Just dl'd 8-bit Killer. Looks awesome; can't wait to try it out.

Cheers,

Tiam

Oh, I almost forgot: I found a neat indie game a few days ago called ROM CHECK FAIL. Here's a description:

ROM CHECK FAIL answers that age-old question, "what if the ROM CHECK... FAILED?" This game was developed for the TIGSource Video Game Name Generator Competition. It is a video game generator.

Here's a link to the site; the designer's got a few games up, it's the fourth one down:

farbs.org/games.html

Many people bring up Cave Story as the example of the ultimate indie game...

It was made by one person, etc... And man, it SHOWS. Sand Zone is a friken TERRIBLE level, and getting all of those dogs is not fun in the slightest. The level design gets grating on multiple playthroughs, really hampering its enjoyment factor over time.

Plus the arcane and obscure requirements to "save Curly" is not exactly an example of good branch-making... if that's the right term. So... the professor lives if I -don't- talk to him? How does that make sense? Nothing in the game alludes to the fact that you shouldn't talk to him- you have to be an asshole and just leave him to get the "good" ending. Or not leaving Curly to rest. Um, what? The book in the house says "let her rest" but she dies if you do. Nice job Pixel-san!

I don't hate Cave Story, but people often forget the glaring flaws in the game (that will never be changed because of its status as the indie darling, ha ha).

Braid is just boring as all hell, and its touted "story" is completely rubbish. Mr. Blow-hard is much more accurate. :p

Iconoclasts is great, though. Hopefully one day it'll be finished.

If you want some good indie/doujin game lovin', check out Crimzon Clover. Man that game is awesome.

youtube.com/watch

There's a free version (first three levels), but it's made by one guy and damn is it a fun game.

Same thing with Kamui. Another great doujin shootemup.

youtube.com/watch

And it's free, if I recall correctly. Get it, and you won't regret it.

I like an indie game that actually tries to challenge me. Or is just plain fun.