Indie Game Websites top 100 indies of all time

[v1rus]

https://www.indiegamewebsite.com/2018/05/11/the-100-best-indie-games-of-all-time/

So, which games are too high or low, which are total trash, which are missing, and all other usual codex fun.

I played good bit of those, and I like most of em a lot, but i certainly wouldnt agree on their ranking, while most of other shit has been on my 2play list for a long long while.

 

[Mustawd]

OVERRATED:

-Nidhogg. It’s a fun game but only for a short period of time. The novelty quickly wears off and after a day or so in MP it has zero replay value. Should be in the 90s.

-To the Moon. It’s a walking simulator disguised as a JRPG. Trash. Doesn’t belong on this list at all.

-Binding of Isaac. It’s fun. Good but not great. Probably belongs in the 40s or 50s IMO.

-Gone Home. This meme will never die. Walkin Sim. Not a game.

-Papers Please. Gameplay is fun. Concept is cool. Art and music is appropriate. Belongs somewhere in the high 30s.

UNDERRATED:

-Path of Exile. It’s a F2P game that has great D2-like combat and does F2P model right. It belongs higher on that list in IMO.

-Bastion. Beautiful art. Great VA. Very fun arpg gameplay. Deserves to be a bit higher.

FEELS ABOUT RIGHT:

-FTL. Nice artstyle. Cool game concept. Tight RL with challenging moment to moment strategic gameplay. Good fun.

-Hotline Miami is a bit high, but I had a ton of fun with it. I’d say somewhere between 10 and 15. Still, I dont blame ppl rating it in top 10.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Haven't looked at the list yet, but I get the strong feeling this will be a "Top 100 Games Made By My Friends and Fuckbuddies in the Industry"-kind of list.

Let's see if I'm right.

EDIT: Ugh. It's worse than I thought.

No-name developers namedropped? Check. (

TF is Christine Love and why should I care?)
Big-name developer's entire catalogue included because 'Muh Indie Games'? Check. (Jonathan Blow, probably others.)
Games released within the past 12 months and therefore haven't had time to be evaluated properly? Check. (Too many to mention.)
Walking simulators counted as games? Check. (Too many to mention, including the #1 game.)
Definition of 'Indie Game' changed to suit author's agenda? Check. (Stronghold (1999) is on the list, so is No Man's Sky.)
Early Access titles present? Check. (Dead Cells.)
Celerity trigger warning content? Check. ( )
Commercial, lifeless remake picked over freeware awesomeness? Check. (Spelunky, probably a few others.)
Author having no fucking clue what he's talking about when describing games? Check. (Spelunky again.)

I wouldn't read this as a "Top X"-list, but more as a haphazard list of successful, and therefore, recommended Indie games. It somewhat works in that regard.

 

[Valtiel]

as I'm playing Darkwood: Darkwood is missing

 

[Bahamut]

Duh, no Terraria makes this list invalid

 

[Baron Dupek]

How is NoMaSky an indie game? I don't follow that crap but from what I know - Sony is (was?) involved.

Stronghold? Maybe that's me but I have hard time calling old games "indie" (except Spiderweb stuff). For me they're all in between - funded by not-greed publishers and released.

As mentioned before - Path of Exile is way too low, this is a real F2P without pathology. Unless your PC suck balls and all these paid cosmetics starts torturing your computer (it happens to me, doesn't help that you can't spawn in your hideout after log-in).

Nobody was bothered by cutting the page into slides for sweet clicks and views?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Duh, no Terraria makes this list invalid

Do you mean its inclusion or its absence? Because it sits at #57.

 

[Bahamut]

Duh, no Terraria makes this list invalid

Do you mean its inclusion or its absence? Because it sits at #57.

Oh blind me them, but still it should be in top 10

 

[Unkillable Cat]

No, that honor was reserved for Minecraft Autism Detection Kit.

 

[v1rus]

I also dislike the shiton of questionably indie titles.

Then again, I'd def categorize Witness as indie - probably because my whole perception of Blow and his work is built on foundation of Braid.

 

[Gerrard]

Half of the top 10 is fucking garbage.

 

[Rahdulan]

Transistor at 91? Dwarf Fortress at 90?

Top 10 is weak as well. You can't really deny Minecraft as a phenomena, though.

 

[octavius]

No Nahlakh?
No Natuk?
No Aethra Chronicles?
Not a single Jeff Vogel game was found worthy?

 

[Fronzel Neekburm]

No Darkwood. No Detention. No One Finger Death Punch. No SOMA. No Broforce. No Luftrausers (it may have been developed by the insufferable Rami Ismail, but unlike a lot of the shit on this list it was actually a fun game). I'm not a huge fan of Amnesia, but #63 is ridiculously low - they might even have gone ahead and included the original White Day, which pioneered a lot of the game mechanics popularised by Amnesia. But alas, White Day is too obscure - it is simply too indie to be included in a list about the top 100 indie games.

Dear Esther in the top 10 is preposterous, as is Oxenfree at #15. Hotline Miami at #3 is an ok pick, whereas Hotline Miami 2 (aka We were absolutely clueless about what made the original game fun) shouldn't even be on the list. The top spot goes to the tiresome "Look, ma! I'm clever"-endeavor that is The Stanley Parable.

Even by the piss-poor standards of clickbait top 100 of whatever-articles this list is absolute fucking dogshit.

 

[v1rus]

Its been a couple years, but I tremendously enjoyed Stanley Parable.

Not saying its #1 indie ever made, but its certainly an interesting and more than a worthwile game.

Then again, I'd say Super Meat Boy is nr #1 indie, or something along the lines. Its not THAT great a game, but it somehow embodies everything an indie game should be in my eyes.

 

[karoliner]

No-name developers namedropped? Check. (

TF is Christine Love and why should I care?)

 

[Fedora Master]

Pretty inoffensive list. The expected pseudointellectual journobait games are listed at the top, of course. It's less a list of "the best" and more a list of "The few indie games that actually made money and weren't forgotten by people within 2 months".

 

[Agame]

The expected pseudointellectual journobait games are listed at the top, of course.

This is the single worst thing about the indie game scene, seeing pretentious walking simulators being idolized as "art". The closest thing to a game that is art is Dwarf Fortress*, and these blithering morons put it at no. 90.

Instead 'Dear Esther' gets in the top ten, cos its so deep and meaningful...

Which is why I think art and games should be separated, just dont do it. Make a really good fun game instead. If you set out with the goal of making an "art game" you will create a shitty walking simulator that idiots will bow down and idolize because they dont know any better. But it will not actually be a good game.

*Yes it really is considered to be art: MOMA

 

[Dreed]

No-name developers namedropped? Check. (

TF is Christine Love and why should I care?)

Spoiler

 

[HeatEXTEND]

That might just be THE most retarded list I've ever seen. What a load of horseshit.

 

[Werdna's Revenge]

Eh, by garbage clickbait listcle standards, this list not the worst. It's not good. It's filled with stuff that's not really indie and some real garbage, but I feel like I could scrape together a decent top 10 from stuff throughout the list. Let's see, in no particular order:

Cave Story: one of the earlier indie metroidvania games and still one of the best. They fail to recognize that this game made a whole hell of lot of the list possible
Dwarf Fortress: one of the greatest achievements in gaming. Many poor imitators, few have the tenacity to create something so wonderful.
Mount and Blade: helluva a great sandbox game, the write up on this in the article is retarded though.
Path of Exile: The actual successor to Diablo II. The pinacle of the ARPG genre.
Faster than Light: This is probably the best sci-fi rougelike I've played.
Undertale: Yeah, it's weeb trash, but it's goddamn fantastic weeb trash.
Stardew Valley: Chill game, but surprisingly tightly designed. Takes Harvest Moon and does it better.
Papers Please: Despite the boring sounding concept it's surprisingly fun. Nice consistant style, but I don't see it having the same influence as so many other games ranked lower on the list.
Minecraft: You can't deny the monsterous influence and success of Minecraft, and you know, it deserves the praise. It's many crappy imitators have brought it's rep down, but the game was refreshing and frankly pretty damn cool when it came out.
Hotline Miami: Over ranked on this list I think, but it's a solid two stick style shooter. Hectic and fun, with a dash of style.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Dwarf Fortress at 90? D:OS and PoE as indie games? This list is even more retarded than the mainstream AAA lists.

 

[Siveon]

Stardew Valley: Chill game, but surprisingly tightly designed. Takes Harvest Moon and does it better.

I agree with most of your post but this is wrong. All they did was lift mechanics from Rune Factory, and do it slightly worse.

 

[Machocruz]

Duh, no Terraria makes this list invalid

It's greater than anything in their top 10. Another list to add to my toilet paper stack

 

[PulsatingBrain]

Commercial, lifeless remake picked over freeware awesomeness? Check. (Spelunky, probably a few others.)

What do you mean by this? Isn't it the same game, aside from the art?