Your favourite wee indie games

[Juniper]

If you're anything like me (and for your sake, I do hope not) you'll probably have dozens, if not hundreds, of titles in your Steam library.

Most of these are probably wee indie games that you've bought in a sale or just fancied.

What are your favourites and why?

A few of mine include:

House Flipper - it's relaxing, and having a partner who insists on remodelling & redecorating every couple of years it's fun to have a bit of freedom, without the hard work or mess.
Evil Bank Manager - surprisingly deep strategy game... although very evil.
Islanders - a very fun chill-out city building game. Not deep, but not trying to be, and "deep enough" that strategy still plays a part.
Car Mechanic Simulator 2018 - I've played this way too much. I don't know why. I don't even particularly like cars. But it's addictive.

There are others, but these have the most playtime for me. At least 80 hours each.

What are yours?

 

[Vasea Azure]

Same as you I have tons of weird indie games on my Steam, mostly ones that I grabbed on sales (some never played after I got em...).
From the top of my head:

The Fisher - very relaxing fishing game (one man project) that ticks more boxes than other games in the fishing genre put together.

Fisher Online on Steam

Fisher Online - online wild fishing simulator. Forget about licenses and catch rates. Choose bait or lures and catch fish in Europe and Russia.

store.steampowered.com

Green Hell - my favorite survival game from small Polish studio. No zombies or fancy creatures, just man vs the wild.... and cannibals. Lots of details put in to this one.

Save 67% on Green Hell on Steam

Plunge into the open-world survival simulation set in the extreme conditions of the uncharted Amazon jungle. Use real-life survival techniques to craft, hunt, fight, and gather resources, set a makeshift shelter, or raise a fortress. Survive alone or team up with your friends and challenge the...

store.steampowered.com

Subnautica - this one doesn't need introduction I think, one of the best investments in to early access Iv made.

Planet Explorers - very promising start, never put in to the fully fleshed out game. Still if you like open world, making your own stuff in quasi voxel environment its a good fun!

Planet Explorers on Steam

Planet Explorers is an open world sandbox adventure RPG game set on a distant planet. The game uses a new OpenCL calculated voxel system to allow players to change the terrain in any way, create new objects such as weapons, vehicles, objects, and do it anywhere.

store.steampowered.com

UBOAT - the cosest thing we can get to good old Silent Hunter series. Dev is working very hard on this game still, wort your support if you are a submariner.

UBOAT on Steam

UBOAT is a simulator of a submarine from WWII era. It is a survival sandbox with crew management mechanics while its primary theme is life of German sailors. The boat is their home, but it can become their grave at any time.

store.steampowered.com

 

[Juniper]

I backed 'Planet Explorers' at the Kickstarter phase, so I have that one too. Not played for a couple of years mind... it seemed very basic at the time, but I guess it's improved somewhat?

Subnautica I keep trying to play, but I never seem to get anywhere. I'm sure there's more to it than I've seen so far, but keep hitting brick walls.

The others I haven't played, although tempted by theFisher Online now...

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Oxygen not included
Rimworld
FTL
are absolute gems.

 

[rootsrat]

Sunless Sea
Deep Sky Derelicts
SOMA (absolute masterpiece this one!)

 

[Vasea Azure]

I backed 'Planet Explorers' at the Kickstarter phase, so I have that one too. Not played for a couple of years mind... it seemed very basic at the time, but I guess it's improved somewhat?

Compared to few years back PExp now have more fleshed out SP story mode that is actually pretty fun. I wasn't following the game more recently but looks like it somehow silently went to being abandoned. I still dont regret getting in to this as for a pretty big and complex open world/building game made by an indie its pretty solid.

 

[Old Duck]

I'm not sure what counts as an Indie game these days. Is Space Engineers an Indie game? Maybe that developer is big in their country but unheard of in US. Is Subnautica an Indie game? If a game starts as Indie and then hits it big, is it still an Indie game, or does it become a mainstream game when it becomes popular?

 

[K M Butler]

Ports of Call XXL -- shipping and trading management sim.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I'm not sure what counts as an Indie game these days. Is Space Engineers an Indie game? Maybe that developer is big in their country but unheard of in US. Is Subnautica an Indie game? If a game starts as Indie and then hits it big, is it still an Indie game, or does it become a mainstream game when it becomes popular?

Hard to say, it is probably interpreted differently. I usually go with self-published as main guideline. Then: Doesn't chase the latest Gfx trend. And: Has its very own character in art and gameplay.

 

[Arkadi]

I think "Darkest Dungeon" qualifies for Indie Game, then "Throne of Lies" and maybe also "Frostpunk".

Rim World is very cool. Subnautica too. And "Tabletop Simulator". And still playing "7 days to die" - after the last update it's a very cool survival game - also without using creative mode.

Maybe I am going to look into Green Hell someday too.

And inpatiently waiting for Mount and Blade II.

Also does Battletech count as Indie Game? That one is very great for me to play too.
And Mechwarriour Living Legend... very Indie indeed - and nice.

Oh, and I forgot to include "They are Billions" ... that's a great Indie Title too.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I think "Darkest Dungeon" qualifies for Indie Game, then "Throne of Lies" and maybe also "Frostpunk".

....

No objection here. I don't think hitting a certain graphic fidelity makes a game fall out of the indie category. I'd rather not look at graphics at all for labelling stuff as "indie".

 

[Juniper]

I'm not sure what counts as an Indie game these days. Is Space Engineers an Indie game? Maybe that developer is big in their country but unheard of in US. Is Subnautica an Indie game? If a game starts as Indie and then hits it big, is it still an Indie game, or does it become a mainstream game when it becomes popular?

I wouldn't say it was anything to do with sales numbers or graphics quality etc. There's a number of different definitions, but for me, if the developer is going through a publishing house then they're not "indie"... because the assumption there is that they took money from that publishing house to develop the game with.

So "developers that self-publish" that paid for their own development up front, for me.

By that token, most of Frontier's output over the past 5 years or so I'd class as "indie". Planet Zoo is "indie". Planet Coaster is "indie". Elite: Dangerous isn't indie, as that required external funding up front in order to happen. Same with JWE.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I could name a fugton, but try to mention those I stick to and come back to:

Airships - Conquer the Skies - casual builder game, neat and fun in a steampunky setting with blocky gfx
Papers please - you control documents at a border checkpoint with a bit of background story. I heard the main music them and knew I wanted this game.

 

[Rick6549]

Darkest dungeon
Shovel knight
Redout
My summer car

But the absoulute best game is Hollow Knight, soon to be replaced by Hollow Knight: Silksong.

 

[Chris Simon]

I really like the Shelter franchise. (Shelter, Shelter 2 and Meadow)
I also occasionally play WolfQuest.
Other than that, I'm not much of a Steam guy, I don't play many indie games.

I don't know if Banner Saga can be really classified as indie, but I play that one a lot, though.

 

[Henkka77]

I am very tempted buying two Finnish masterpieces, Noita (witch in english) and Baba Is You.
But especially Baba..

Noita looks interesting also, every pixel simulated..

 

[Fishy]

Just picked up Baba last night, it's been on my wishlist long enough... Absolutely loving it.

 

[Henkka77]

Just picked up Baba last night, it's been on my wishlist long enough... Absolutely loving it.

As i said, i am very tempted on buying those, but i'm afraid that especially Baba will drive me nuts with its puzzles..

 

[Fishy]

As i said, i am very tempted on buying those, but i'm afraid that especially Baba will drive me nuts with its puzzles..

Oh it likely will. It ramps up fast.

 

[marx]

Not mentioned in the thread yet: The Long Dark (nice for the holidays!), UnReal World, Dwarf Fortress, Stellaris.

+1 for Oxygen Not Included and Banner Saga, those are great too. (Although to be honest, I was a bit let down by TBS 3. Still worth playing the trilogy, mind.) Noita is excellent as well, although still somewhat deep in Early Excess, so you might want to wait on it some more.