My favorites are:
Outer Wilds, Silksong (& HK), Hades 1 & 2, Nine Sols, Blue Prince, Subnautica, Dave the Diver, Return of the Obra Dinn, Papers Please, Inscryption, Baba is You and Factorio.
Some of these are not recent though.
this post was submitted on 24 May 2026
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Outer Wilds is an absolute masterpiece, easily in my top 10 (perhaps even top 5) games of all time. The DLC is amazing too. The rest of the games you mentioned are also good.
A bunch i really liked were:
- Hades (and Hades 2) (action roguelike)
- Dead Cells (side scroller roguelike)
- Celeste (Precision Platformer)
- HexCells (puzzle game)
- Shadow Tactics: Blade of the Shogun (Stealth Strategy, the other games by the same dev are great too)
- Prey (well, maybe its not an indie, but its great)
- Vampire Survivors (Bullet Heaven, great to zone out too, lots of things to collect)
- BugSnax (Not sure if Indie, but a lot more fun than it looks)
- Cave Story (Side Scroller)
- Creeper World 4 (Strategy game, I think 4 is the most recent. No need to play older ones unless you want more of the same)
- Earth Defence force 6 (janky, but fun multiplayer with friends)
- Heros Hour (strategy)
- Oxygen Not Included (colony builder)
- Rim World (colony builder)
- Satisfactory (Automation game)
- Pit People (strategy game)
- Supraland (puzzle game, sequel is fun too)
- The Talos Principle (Puzzle game, I think its indie?)
- Undertale (RPG, its fantastic)
- You must build a boat (Match 3)
Fun fact: The Talos Principle is by the same devs that made all the Serious Sam games.
What I've played and can 100% vouch for:
- Another Crab's Treasure
- Celeste
- Fly Knight
- Katana Zero
- Noita
- Terraria
- The Messenger
- Ultrakill
- ZeroRanger
What I haven't played but looks good:
I will shill crosscode at every opportunity. Favourite game of all time for me. Def give it a shot when you can. There's also a free demo.
Pseudoregalia is also awesome. Can't speak on any of the others to be played tho
Enjoy your gaming :)
Crosscode mentioned!
Words really cannot express how excellent it is. Whoever is considering it, just go for it!
Seconded. Great combat, puzzles, exploration, boss fights, and story. What else could you possibly want.
If you haven't yet, check out alabaster dawn the devs' new game. In early access now.
I def plan on playing everything in that list. I have an entire backlog lol. I bought the lot of them when they were on sale. It's only a matter of getting to them.
Of my list, I shill Katana Zero and ZeroRanger the most. They're short but sweet. I went into them completely blind after having listened to part of their OSTs. If you have the chance, do try them. :)
Crosscode is definitely a bit of a commitment. But honestly the length just felt right to me
Hero's Hour is a fun Hero's of might and magic crossed with an auto battler
Dwarf Fortress is the worlds first and most in depth colony sim their motto is "losing is fun"
Crawl is really fun 4 player pvp local co-op dungeon crawler
YOMI hustle is an absolutely bizarre turn based 1 on 1 fighting game
7 days a stranger will bring you down a rabbit hole of point and click horror mystery
Due Process is a very fascinating take on team based shooters
FTL is a rougelike space battler
Into the Breach is a fun strategy battler with mechs and knockback mechanics
Rift Wizard topdown rougelike wizard sim
Noita sidescrolling rougelike wizard sim where every pixel is simulated gets real nuts
I really enjoyed I was a Teenage Exocolonist, its a narrative game where you grow up in a colony being established on a distant planet. It has skill training mechanics where you can develop skills to pass skill checks and has card based gameplay for determining the outcome of some events.
Ena: Dream BBQ is another game I really enjoyed it has a really unique art style and has some great humour. It's definitely really fun to go in to this one blind
Happy cake day!
A diverse selection of my indie favourites:
Celeste, Citizen Sleeper, Outer Wilds, Tunic, Stray Gods, A Short Hike, Disco Elysium
Highly recommend crosscode. It is a snes era style rpg. It has great puzzles, boss fights, combat, exploration, and story. What more could you ask for.
You play as Lea who is brought into the world of crosscode, a fictional mmo where the avatars that people play as are physically present. Lea has amnesia and plays the mmo to try and recover her memory.
The devs just recently released their new game, alabaster dawn, into early access. I would say it is more GameCube era style.
I don't game as much as I used to, but I have a list (in no particular order).
- Project Zomboid
- Planet of Lana (1/2)
- The Drifter
- Replaced
- No, I'm not a Human
- The Long Dark
- Nine Sols
- Stray
- Firewatch
- Disco Elysium
- Spiritfarer
- Sea Of Stars
There's more, but these are off the top of my head.
A few games I really enjoyed Planet of Lana which just had a new instalment, Tunic, Selaco, Arco, Spritfall, Bionic Ban, Prodeus, Neva, Children of the Sun, and Children of Morta.
My Summer Car is an incredibly well-designed game.
The problem is that it's designed incredibly well to simulate rural life in Finland during the 90's economic depression, and punish the player at every step.
The dev is open about it. The first sentence of the release trailer is "This is not a fun game".
Release trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulXkgdijz1c
Fan-made trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brlM92kScmM
I really recommend Slay The Spire 1 & 2, fantastic game!
Best rogue-like(GPLv3):
Shattered Pixel Dungeon
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1769170/Shattered_Pixel_Dungeon/
I know this game and this feels like something only the developer's mother would say. It's fine!
- Full Bore is IMO one of the most underrated games on Steam (10+ years old and only 78 reviews) if you like puzzle platformers.
- Baba is You if you like puzzles without platforming.
- Dropsy surrealistic point-and-click.
- SteamWorld Dig 2 metroidvania, and currently on sale.
- Ittle Dew Zelda-style adventure game... with puzzles.
- VVVVVV retro puzzle game, with platforms but no jumping.
I thought I had more varied taste in games but kind of realizing that there's a pattern now that I'm writing down the ones I've enjoyed the most.
The most libre FPS: (zlib engine, CC-BY-SA assets)
Red Eclipse (= parkour shooter)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/967460/Red_Eclipse/
(I prefer the gameplay and physics of RE1.6, but should still have a good time with this 2.0)
Check out Skyrim! /jk
Exanima is fun and frustrating. Screenshots don't really tell the story about its gameplay, check out a video or go in blind lol
Timberborn recently hit 1.0, it's good.
Abiotic Factor is pretty amazing. I'll play with ya.
The downfall of any good indie game is that it's a target for acquisition. Anything we love can be turned against us. ROCKET LEAGUE.
I played s.p.l.i.t fairly recently, and I was seriously impressed. It's a very unique narrative-driven game where you're in communication with a small group of hackers in a uniquely dystopian world, and you need to collaborate with them to hack a specific device.
It's only about an hour or two long, but it's priced to match at $3, and wow did it leave an impression on me, it's unlike anything else I've ever played.
Highly recommend it if that sounds at all intriguing.
Knowing some basic MS-DOS/Linux terminal commands beforehand, like how to change directories/navigate would be helpful (this quick guide would be all you really need).
Lost Skies
Balatro