We're still a gaming community right guys?
Hoping we can compile a trustworthy-ish list of indie games that are actually worth a damn. I'm maybe a single toe deep into the Indie game world.
What are some of your recommendations?
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Kinda surprised that nobody has mentioned Trepang² yet. I haven't played it myself yet, but everything I've seen is that it's solid.
If you're after boomer shooters, I'd recommend a few titles, like HROT, Turbo Overkill, ULTRAKILL, DUSK. There's more too. I dunno how the devs are, I know that David S (the guy behind Dusk and New Blood (the publishers of a few of these)) is at least left leaning.
Superliminal is a pretty good puzzle game, and though it's a little on the short side, it doesn't overstay its welcome either.
Cultist Simulator is a pretty solid game, though I'm fairly sure that the devs are probably pozzed. That said, I don't think there's any of that in the game, so there's always that.
The cultist sim dev is of the Alec Holowka variety, which is to say likely degenerate trendy progressive type, whom the feminist machine turned on and tried to ruin (disclaimer: half-remembered facts and personal opinions mixed here). Alexis Kennedy - who is also the author of the Fallen London universe though no longer involved with those games - suffered a MeToo attempt by spiteful workplace harpies, who complained that he was horrible and creepy and pursued inappropriate workplace relationships with infant female children aged 20+... all that usual shit. I think he mentioned feeling suicidal for a spell, but unfortunately for his attackers they weren't quite able to get him to kill himself like Quinn did with Holowka, perhaps partly because of the support of the 'victim' of his workplace advances whom he married and remains married to. I believe the dev name Weather Factory now refers basically to him and her.
Long story short, you're inadvertently opposing cancel culture by supporting them, although these types typically never learn so don't imagine there's some kind of conservative hero getting the benefit.
They recently put out Book of Hours which I bought and like, but despite letting it take up a lot of my time, it's impossible to recommend universally. It's basically Cultist Sim with a more colourful table and almost all of the pressure and fail states shaved off, so it ditches the febrile tension of that game, but also many of the parts that made it a game at all. What's left now is a kind of RNG-dependent delve into a chill, text-driven larp as someone restoring an old house and poking at hidden mysteries - but not exactly a game as much as it is a set of recipes and calculations you have to balance and discover.
Trepang is weird because it's really quite good in terms of combat and gameplay, but it didn't exactly leave me as satisfied as I'd expected. I'm honestly not entirely sure why. I guess maybe the lukewarm and artificial-feeling story?
Not that I can blame them, it's tough to fit everything in with a full stamp of quality for an indie studio, especially when they have a high bar to meet on the combat, gameplay, and 3D visuals. And they did give it a reasonably solid try with a story that works extremely well on paper, but just didn't have all the details fleshed out in a compelling way.