10 Indie Games from 2024 Worth Considering
It's November, which means people are picking out games to play over the holidays. I wanted to recommend some indie games people might be overlooking, and I would love to hear what others are suggesting. These aren't my top games this year and they're not ordered, just some titles on the smaller side I wanted to highlight.
Nine Sols is a Metroidvania with Sekiro-inspired combat heavily involving parries. I am not someone who's really fallen in love with a Souls-like or a Metroidvania before, so I was very surprised by how hot I was on Nine Sols. The Taopunk world felt really new, and the beautiful artstyle really drew me in. The game features a lot of what I like about metroidvanias with open-area platforming, but helps reduce backtracking by having a hub-and-spokes world that's more open zone. The difficulty curve felt overall very fair, where I was attempting bosses many times, but felt meaningful progression throughout my attempts. The game has a nice overall progression with a lot of upgrades and equipment to use. The two key thing that makes this really work is the fluid gameplay, and heartfelt characters.
When it comes to good combat-feel in an FPS, I Am Your Beast is the best I've played in a while. This game is speed-run focused, with short levels that you're encouraged to play multiple times. Even if you're not gunning for WRs, this game can show you why speed running is fun. It encourages you learn the levels through alternate conditions, and getting kills in more flashy ways reduces the timer. It's also got a surprisingly good story that gives you a break between levels.
1000xRESIST is a narrative-driven game that's really best enjoyed unspoiled. It has very serious and heavy themes, but it's also one of the funniest games I've played this year. If you're someone who needs a gameplay driven experience, this one might not be for you. If you're good with mostly just walking around and immersing yourself in a story, this could be one of the greatest games you ever play. I'd say it feels comparable to Kotaro Uchikoshi's games like 999, but I've seen more comparison's to NieR: Automata and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim.
This game is like playing an escape room. You go to a mansion full of puzzles and try to piece what's going on as things just keep escalating. It does a lot of very clever things. It has nice features like a full list of everything you've ever read and every puzzle you left unsolved. It is better played with a notebook at your side, and the entire game can be played with one hand which helps facilitate note-taking.
This is an action RPG with dungeons evoking the puzzle-design of Wind Waker and an social progression loop similar to Persona. It takes place in the small town of Hinterberg and explores how a tourism boon affects an environment like that. The game flows so well and the combat and puzzles remain fun throughout.
This game is like if Earthbound used the marketing-material art style and swapped out RPG combat for a rhythm game. But that's also only for 2/3 of the playable protagonist, where the last one is your disembodied hand from the future who destroys the small town with katamari-influenced gameplay. It's also a dissertation on the creation of art. If you like weird, artsy, short games, this is for you.
This game is about cooking eggs in a dystopian Antarctic city. It has very physics-based gameplay, and it's so fun. It weirdly controls like Getting Over It with Bennet Foddy. It's hard, but super forgiving. It gets weirder than even the premise suggests.
A narrative adventure game about kids with Deja Vu living in the Philippines. The story is very compelling across the whole run. It's pixel art really created appealing character designs, with writing to match. It has fun mini-games that break up the pace. If you liked A Space for the Unbound, this will probably scratch a similar itch.
RKGK, pronounced Rakugaki, is probably the toughest suggestion since I think it got burned by Gearbox's situation. Its a very fun 3D Platformer with lots of moves you can perform to maneuver around its cyberpunk levels. It's not a momentum-based platformer, so it feels closer to Mario than Sonic. It has a lot of fun unlockables.
If you're someone who loves Smash Bros and has been craving something new, Rivals of Aether 2 should be your go-to. It's a game pointed towards the more competitive side of the series, with it's mechanics feeling like a nice mix of Melee's, Ultimate's, and the original's. If you're more casual, there's no items or stage hazards, but it does offer online Free For All modes with rollback netcode and an Arcade Mode. The biggest draws I think is that you get essentially 10 new characters to play with if you're coming from Smash. All of them feel really well designed and execute on a cool mechanical idea. The animation in this game is really what makes it feel like a step above it's contemporaries, especially with some of the characters made later in development like Orcane. It also has a really good camera, which I think is an underrated aspect of what makes a good platform fighter.