Love the Player and the Game: Indie Games to Steal Your Heart

If you’ve read just about any of my previous posts, then you know I’m a total fangirl when it comes to the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series. But those aren’t the only games I play! Aside from the handful of mobile games I check in with on the daily (Where are my fellow Covet Fashion and/or Gardenscapes addicts?), I also enjoy hunting through Steam for indie games.

Although video game making is still a bit more complex than, say, board game making, it has become a vastly more accessible process over the past few years and, thanks to that, there are a lot more interesting and diverse ideas being explored in the medium. Looking for something new to play? Check out this list of lesser-known titles.

Life Is Strange

While I sometimes enjoy playing games just for the sake of playing them (see my reference to Covet Fashion — aka paper dolls for adults — above), I’m a story gal at heart. If there isn’t a good storyline and/or compelling characters for me to get invested in, then I tend to lose interest pretty quickly.

Life is Strange features both. You play as Max, a teenage girl returning to her hometown to attend the prestigious Blackwell Academy, an art-centric boarding school. Max runs into her old BFF, discovers a sudden ability to rewind time, and finds herself at the heart of several mysteries plaguing the small town.

Originally developed by Dontnod Entertainment and released by Square Enix in episodes, this game, which can now be played in its entirety, has just about everything I could ask for: well-drawn characters and a complex story formed in part by the players’ choices — there are big and small choices that will change certain aspects of the game’s outcome, as well as branching conversation options. And on top of all that, there’s a wicked time-travel element that will have you rewinding and rethinking your decisions all the way through.

Additional shout-out to this game’s prequel, Life is Strange: Before the Storm. While the time-travel angle is absent from this story, which follows Chloe, the aforementioned BFF, it is an interesting look into the events preceding Life is Strange, and it still features fleshed out characters and a strong “choices matter” element.

Oh, and did I mention Life Is Strange 2 is in development? Happy days!

Oxenfree

In Oxenfree, you play as Alex, a teenager visiting a local island with a group of friends. When they accidentally awaken a supernatural force on the otherwise empty island, she and her friends must discover what the force is and how to contain and/or destroy it.

The first word that comes to mind when I think of this game is atmosphere. There is a calm yet sinister feeling to the island from the very start, and that disquiet only grows as the story progresses.

Oxenfree, developed and produced by Night School Studio, is another game with branching conversations and where choices matter. But instead of the conversations happening in isolated subtitles or prompts at the bottom of the screen, they occur in speech bubbles over the characters’ heads, and if an answer isn’t chosen quickly enough, the choices will disappear/your character won’t answer. While this can be irritating at times, it mostly creates a realistic flow to the game. After all, people don’t always wait for a response before they continue speaking or get distracted by something else.

Overall, this an unsettling, intriguing little game with gorgeous graphics and a high replayability factor.

Pony Island

Have you ever encountered a possessed arcade game and then been forced to solve puzzles and fight demons in order to escape? Who hasn’t, amirite?

Anyway, that’s the premise of the twisted, metafictional game designed and produced by Daniel Mullins of Daniel Mullins Games as part of the Ludum Dare video game development competition. It was so well received that Mullins tweaked it further for release through Steam’s Greenlight program.

The challenges in Pony Island run the gamut, from puzzler to hacking game to classic side scroller play. With every twist and turn, the player is pulled deeper and deeper toward a showdown with Satan himself.

Can you escape Pony Island? Give this a play and find out! Then join me as I wait for Mullins next game, The Hex.

Space Pilgrim Saga

Space Pilgrim Saga was developed by Pilgrim Adventures, published by Grab The Games, and released in a series of episodes. In Episode I: Alpha Centauri, Captain Gail Pilgrim (see what they did there?) is doing what she’s done since she was a child: ferrying random passengers from one space station or planet to another. Thing is, her passengers on this trip are a little odder than usual, and not too far into the flight, Gail begins to get the feeling this isn’t going to be a typical run.

It’s a pretty common science fiction premise, but the game is an old school adventure with all the bells and whistles — interesting characters and worldbuilding, plenty of dialogue, and the need to combine weird items to create new tools.

Episodes I-IV are complete, and an epilogue, Space Pilgrim Academy, was released not too long ago. I just downloaded it, actually, and can’t wait to revisit the Space Pilgrim universe.

Tacoma

Full disclosure: I haven’t played this game. I tried to, but it’s set on a space station, and the movement made me too motion sick. Further disclosure: I have a hair-trigger when it comes to motion sickness, so those with a sturdier stomach (i.e., just about everyone) should be a-okay.

However, the reason I feel confident recommending Tacoma without playing it is because it’s from Fullbright, the publisher/developer of Gone Home. Gone Home is a game in which you return home from a trip abroad to find your entire family absent. There are clues about your mom, dad, and sister’s whereabouts laying around, and it’s up to you to put the pieces together. For the record, Gone Home is another indie game that I wholeheartedly recommend — it just isn’t spec fic.

But Tacoma is spec fic — as I mentioned before, it’s set on a space station — and from everything I’ve read about it, it features interesting worldbuilding and the same careful storytelling that made Gone Home so compelling.

If you’ve actually played Tacoma, then I beg of you, tell me more of it in the comments so I may enjoy it vicariously through you.

In the Valley of Gods

This is another game I haven’t played, but that’s only because it hasn’t been released yet. Developer Campo Santo has already released an amazing trailer, and has been getting props for everything from featuring not one, but two female protagonists of color, to lead artist Jane Ng‘s ongoing efforts to design realistic Afro-Textured hair, a feat that has eluded many a game developer.

People are also excited because of the success of Campo Santo’s previous game Firewatch, released by Campo Santo and Panic. Firewatch is set in 1989 at the Shoshone National Forest, and you play as Henry, a new fire lookout. The only interpersonal interaction is with another lookout, Delilah, via walkie-talkie. Most of the time you’re wandering around the forest, keeping an eye out for fire hazards, and tracking a group of campers who seem bound and determined to intentionally or unintentionally start a blaze.

I was surprised how invested I became in Henry and Delilah’s budding friendship; there’s an intimacy to their voice-only interactions that drew me in from the very start. Henry’s solitary treks are also very calming. Well, until a mystery develops, and his isolation shifts from being peaceful to perilous.

Regardless, Firewatch rocks, and based on the strength of that game, along with the great trailer for In the Valley of Gods, I’m not the only one counting down the days until I can preorder Campo Santo’s next outing.

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How about you? What spec fic indie games have you played and loved over the last couple of years? I’m always looking for new games to play, so please share your recommendations in the comments!