I guess either Shovel Knight or Hades
ya know what, I'mma round it out as a Top 5, so let's throw in Bastion, Bloodstained, and Dust: An Elysian Tail as well.
this post was submitted on 04 May 2025
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Live for Speed
I've been playing it on and off for over 20 years now with some definite highs and lows but I have nothing but respect for the devs (3 people) and community. It's not on any store fronts and they just do their own thing.
Most of what I play is indie and choosing a favorite is too hard, so instead I'll go with biggest playtime. Antimatter Dimensions, also on Steam, has quickly shot to having the highest playtime of my Steam library. It is an idle/incremental game. Bonus points: free! Most of the idle/!incremental_games@incremental.social I have played have been free in the browser without IAPs, and seem to have been made by one or a few people.
Not counting that, I'd probably have to go with Stardew Valley.
free in the browser without IAPs
Like what else?
- Idle Formulas
- Kittens Game
- untitled shark game, if you are stuck on which one to play I recommend at least starting with the original (bottom choice)
- PokéClicker
- Advent Incremental, I had more fun doing this around Christmas time but it is also playable off-season
- The Idle Class, game was probably intended as cynical political commentary on problems with capitalism, but my oversensitive "dammit yes I agree with you but I want to enjoy a game without dooming about the world" self was able to play just fine without getting sad or angry or hopeless
- Fundamental
- A-Z Inc
- Swarm Simulator
Lots more I cannot remember off the top of my head
super meat boy
Crosscode for sure! They have a new game in the works as well, it looks like it will be just as good. Great time to get into it
I really hope the sequel does more with dungeons than just ricochet/geometry puzzles. CrossCode's incessant use of those in dungeon after dungeon was what made me stop playing.
Not a sequel, just their next game! Combat and UI look similar so far. They’re doing dev streams on their discord
I thought crosscode had the best puzzles haha. The way they built it out with the elemental system, the enemies that required puzzle mechanics you had learned, the tight timing where you had to send a ball flying and then race it to various objectives, the myriad of subtle environmental puzzles in the overworld. Could go on and on, but yeah the VRP is the game’s central mechanic so if you simply don’t enjoy lining up your shots then I imagine the game would be pretty rough lol
Not sure what "VRP" is unless you just mean ricochet puzzles, but mind you, I did play 95% of the game. It felt just too same-y after long enough (it was the plot and environment that had kept me going), and then I just gave up and finished through some YouTuber's play-through and I confirmed that I had apparently quit at the start of the final dungeon, because it just felt like... more of the same timing-&-angling annoyances with no more originality. Zelda was far, far more creative and I think the game just could have done more with items or different weapons, or something, though I know much of it is based on your character being a specific class that was fixed pre-game... It just ultimately wore me down, sadly.
Right: *successor, not "sequel."
Virtual Ricochet Projectile :p
It’s the game’s in-game (Crossworlds) terminology for the charged shot that bounces around, yeah. They cover it in the tutorial but the main cast basically ‘nerd emoji’s’ Sergey and they simply refer to it as “balls” for the rest of the game lol
timing-&-angling annoyances
But yeah, like I said, you just don’t like the central mechanic. It’s valid. This is the main point of contention for the minority of people who don’t click with the game, as is evidenced by filtering for negative reviews on steam
But imagine if you didn’t find it to be an annoyance, and instead found it to be inherently satisfying? One of my favorite parts about Crosscode is how unafraid they are to present you with puzzles that are not only difficult to solve in the typical sense, but also difficult to perform once you know what to do. It’s a rare treat, most games instead lean hard only into one direction (purely cerebral puzzling or purely focussed on action)
It’s a game that just gives and gives, and to the contrary of your experience, I found the constant innovation of the puzzles throughout the game is what brought it from A to S tier. I finished the final dungeon wishing there was more game to play. Imagine my delight when the DLC dropped and added another 20 hours of timing & angling goodness. Replayed the game 3 times over the years.
And yeah, frankly we should compare it to Zelda, the most celebrated and beloved puzzle adventure series of all time developed and supported for 40 years by one of the largest and most influential video game companies of all time. No joke, I think this is actually exactly where Crosscode stacks up. It’s up there for me with my favorite Zelda titles
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I haven’t seen it mentioned and feel like it should count, since it really just had a solo programmer working with a graphic designer and musician, but RollerCoaster Tycoon and RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 took a big chunk of my gaming time.
I really like Isle Wars and Scorched Earth
Another Crab’s Treasure.
Oh, haha, a souls game but with crabs, funny parody haha!
Except, no, while it does seem like it would be compared to SpongeBob humor, and it does self censor “shit” to “ship”, the themes of the story go well beyond just “Crab must find his stolen shell!”
It takes time to ramp up but in some ways it feels like a better-written game than most Soulslikes (to me, that’s not a high bar given the way many of them wrap their lore in many layers of obfuscation that you don’t get to enjoy in the moment)
Watching speedruns and trying NG+ is also a lot of fun.
i love its anticapitalist take on ocean pollution. unironically smart stuff
Clonk Endevour is not my favorite game, but I played it a lot with friends when I was younger. You can play with 2 or even more people, with just a monitor and a keyboard! Also it's so old it should run on any potato.
edit: real answer is Slay The Spire
edit2: ah shit now all of a sudden all the good indie games I played pop up in my head. Project Kat I enjoyed. Synthetik was awesome. Caves of Qud hasn't been mentioned yet (didn't play it much though).
Tactical Breach Wizards
The whole defenestration trilogy is amazing
Yep, agree. Heat Signature was also fun, but getting rather repetitive.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. If that doesn't count. Will....HoloCure or Noita or Parking Garage Rally Circuit.
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Rogue Legacy
NaissancE
That game is something else. Music by Pauline Oliveros is half of the game's magic.
Most of my picks have been mentioned already, but I had a blast with Mullet Madjack. A tongue in cheek riff on 80s anime in a boomer shooter where you have 10 seconds to live, but each enemy kill gives you 2 more seconds of life.
I remember playing an RPG back in the day called “Dink Smallwood” on my old Macintosh laptop, it was one of the few games that were Mac compatible. Really funny and self aware dialogue, pretty great! I found out there’s an app version of it for mobile