Board 8 > Johnbobb ranks every indie game he's ever played

(+) Yeah! (+)

Johnbobb posted...

But also fuck that two hours of real time to float on a cloud to try and get a puzzle piece, trying to do that on a shared desktop computer suuuuuucked.

Haha I bet. Imagine having to do it a second time if you messed up that World 3 star.

foolm0r0n posted...

It's more than that though because lots of people don't like Myst, so why would they try a Myst-like? Unique games deserve not to be reduced to a single comparison like that.

You tried it and didn't like it. Big deal, you lost like an hour. But there's a very good chance you could've liked it since it's a great game.

It's not like b8 made you play the entirety of Tales of Symphonia for 53 hours, stringing you along saying "I swear it gets better in the next chapter" over and over. Never gonna get over that one.

More than an hour. Not the 53 you spent on ToS, but just because you wasted 53 hours on a game you didn't like doesn't invalidate people who spent 52 on something else. We have one thing in common -- we played it longer than we should have, waiting for it to get good, and it never happened. So you can likely understand my bitterness as a result.

And not trying a Myst-like if they don't like Myst...is exactly my point. If you don't like sports games, are you going to play the latest Madden or FIFA? The difference is that if someone offers me Madden or FIFA, I know it's a sports game.

WazzupGenius00 posted...

is it even a Myst-like? I haven't played it in like 20 years but I remember Myst being a point and click. The actual movement is a huge part of Outer Wilds

It's Myst x Majora's Mask. But saying it's like Majora's Mask could reasonably be construed as spoiling. Saying it's like Myst -- minimalist controls, obtuse puzzles, and a distinct lack of hand-holding -- is not unfair when I dislike them both for the same reasons. Except I also hate the Outer Wilds for its movement and for needing to magically be at the right place at the right time or you learn nothing.

Anyway, I'll stop kicking this horse.

So speaking of games I didn't realize what they were going in, I had no idea on A Plague Tale, either. It just seemed to get pushed routinely on Steam and I decided to take a flyer on it. This was a game I could have and maybe should have known what it was before buying, and very nearly returned before the two hour mark when it revealed a heavy reliance on stealth, mixed with horror elements. Not to undermine my OW argument above, but those are two genres I wouldn't expect to like, particularly the horror, but Plague Tale doesn't fully commit to either. Rather, it exists in this in-between space where there are some intense moments, but I'm not fully creeped out. It puts in more than the token stealth section many games have, so the experience is more refined, but it backs off it periodically so you don't have to endure 20 straight hours of it.

Agree with basically everything in the write-up. Amicia's character is great, the art and production are amazing, I was always surprised how the portions of gameplay where we were in a town or other civilized area didn't feel contrived for the sake of level design. There are a few choices Innocence makes that Requiem is better-off for not making, and there are a few minor nitpicks I could make but won't because spoilers, but overall a game that surpassed expectations significantly.

I don't see how anything Asobo did could be considered indie by even the loosest definitions

azuarc posted...

More than an hour. Not the 53 you spent on ToS, but just because you wasted 53 hours on a game you didn't like doesn't invalidate people who spent 52 on something else.

Well I've played the game and I know it's 2 hours max before you realize it's Myst-like. So it's nothing like ToS.

Also I'd say 90%+ of Outer Wilds fans don't like Myst.

foolm0r0n posted...

It's not like b8 made you play the entirety of Tales of Symphonia for 53 hours, stringing you along saying "I swear it gets better in the next chapter" over and over. Never gonna get over that one.

I can empathize with being "tricked" into playing bad RPGs but I think if you keep going after, say, hour 36, that's on you lol

36. Antichamber
Yet another one of the reality-bending first-person sci-fi puzzle exploration games, I know, but I think Antichamber is legitimately the one that sets the standard for them (aside from Portal, which is fantastic but isn't an indie game). If you enjoyed The Witness, I think you'll get a lot out of Anitchamber. It follows a similar structure of putting you in a big, mysterious place and letting you explore it freely at your own pace, and letting you slowly unlock/uncover new areas with constantly changing game mechanics. It's super challenging and even more trippy. It's difficult to explain exactly how the game works; there's like blocks, and barriers, and Witness-like little wall puzzles, and various guns to alter your block placement. Just a really cool experience.

oh man... I wanted to like Antichamber so bad, but I somehow managed to not find any of the guns despite searching a ton of the map, and getting stuck for an extended period of time on a game where everyone is like "nooo don't look at a walkthrough ever, just wait and think and you'll figure it out yourself!" sours one on it quite a bit, it turns out :/

Zyxyz0 posted...

oh man... I wanted to like Antichamber so bad, but I somehow managed to not find any of the guns despite searching a ton of the map, and getting stuck for an extended period of time on a game where everyone is like "nooo don't look at a walkthrough ever, just wait and think and you'll figure it out yourself!" sours one on it quite a bit, it turns out :/

See, I'm of the opinion "fuck that, if I'm going to have a miserable time otherwise, I'm going to look up something to get pointed in the right direction"

Kenri posted...

I can empathize with being "tricked" into playing bad RPGs but I think if you keep going after, say, hour 36, that's on you lol

It is tbh, but also a girl IRL lent me the game to play it, and I didn't have the balls to give it back half finished

Johnbobb posted...

See, I'm of the opinion "fuck that, if I'm going to have a miserable time otherwise, I'm going to look up something to get pointed in the right direction"

Yup, spoiled is always better than nothing in puzzle games. But it's hard to know if you're just frustrated enough to fight through and get a great feeling of accomplishment, or so frustrated that you'll quit the game

I realize I don't think Slay the Spire has showed up, but I am also not sure if JB has played it

foolm0r0n posted...

Yup, spoiled is always better than nothing in puzzle games. But it's hard to know if you're just frustrated enough to fight through and get a great feeling of accomplishment, or so frustrated that you'll quit the game

so the sweet spot for me is that if I am stuck, I like to look up the bare minimum I think I need to point me in the right direction. Sometimes it's as simple as just seeing there was a doorway or button or something I missed

ScareChan posted...

I realize I don't think Slay the Spire has showed up, but I am also not sure if JB has played it

I will confirm I have no yet played Slay the Spire, but I do own it and have had it recommended to me several times

34. Night in the Woods
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc6f9llfs0w

It's always nice discovering a new game I can vaguely recreate the art style of

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/df5b2fc2.jpg

Night in the Woods is just a very charming while also unsettling change of pace. It captures a uniquely relateable feeling of returning to a hometown you've left and don't have fond memories of, where things both very uncomfortably old and new. The characters are all pleasant and wholesome, and while I've seen mixed feelings on the spooky (it's not horror but it does have very creepy and sometimes scary tones to it) plot twists, I really just loved it start to finish.

azuarc posted...

It's Myst x Majora's Mask. But saying it's like Majora's Mask could reasonably be construed as spoiling. Saying it's like Myst -- minimalist controls, obtuse puzzles, and a distinct lack of hand-holding -- is not unfair when I dislike them both for the same reasons. Except I also hate the Outer Wilds for its movement and for needing to magically be at the right place at the right time or you learn nothing.

Anyway, I'll stop kicking this horse.

Yeah, I don't think this is a discussion that really can occur because I would just say you haven't described Outer Wilds well at all with this post.

Aw I was hoping NitW would go a bit higher, alas. One of my favorite games in general, the characters and dialogue are so so good.

33. Golf Story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zufLtHu_m7o

I don't think anyone expected Golf Story to be the incredible hit it was. Legitimately I could not have cared less about golf as a game genre prior to this game, but the gameplay is weirdly addicting. It really plays more like an RPG than a sports game, only its an RPG where all the gameplay is golf. When you're not golfing, you're minigolfing or frisbee golfing or hitting golf balls at targets or people or skeletons. It's way more fun than golfing has any right to be. One of these days I'll go play Sports Story. The Golf Story sequel, but with less golf and more non-golf sports, went from being my most anticipated game to releasing silently without me even realizing, with minimal fanfare and unimpressive reception. It has to be one of the most underwhelming sequel releases I've seen. I have to still assume there's fun to be had though, because Golf Story is legitimately just so good.

32. Firewatch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdUYYnfRdl8

I love these first-person exploration mystery games, but I will fully admit I'm running out of things to say about them. Firewatch doesn't really shake up the gameplay of the genre much, but the real appeal of these games are the stories and how they're presented. One thing that does make Firewatch stand out is the constant development of the relationship between Henry and Delilah. Too often these games are just one person navigating an environment, usually with occasional voice clips or comments here and there. But Firewatch manages to make Delilah truly feel like a real person rather than just a voice in a box, largely due to an excellent performance by her voice actress.

31. Oxenfree
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAhrOoNR4ng

The stuff I said about Oxenfree II? Oxenfree is that but better. Interesting characters mixed with top tier horror lore and scifi time-bending and dimension shenanigans. I really love this kind of personal choice-based storytelling. For most of it, you're not hit with a "choose A or B to determine your ending" kind of choice, but your relationships with your friends will evolve naturally based on the way you speak to them, with consequences that feel extremely by the time the story resolves. The horror it presents keys in to a certain type of recognizable terror tied to its time period, flipping through radio signals to find ones that feel just outside the realm of familiarity. That combined with the overall deepdive into the trauma of loss makes for a hauntingly memorable experience.

Woo I've played (and enjoyed) all 3 of these! I was blindsided and so very disappointed seeing Sports Story's reception (I think 'unimpressive' is putting it mildly!), have no interest in touching it now. Haven't played Ox2 either, Afterparty soured me on that team somewhat, but I will get there. And people seem to be pretty down on Firewatch these days, or at least how it ends, but I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it!

30. Castle Crashers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JcmxKOC4R0

Not all of these games are deep, dramatic stories about grief! Castle Crashers is probably about as not-deep as they come, but it's also probably my pick for the best 2D side-scrolling beat 'em up I've played. The comedy is off-the-wall types of goofy, throwing every sort of scifi and fantasy and nonsense it can come up with and throwing them into a blender to pour into its vaguely medieval setting. I played through all of Castle Crashers in one sitting while visiting my (at the time) best friend, spending the entire day on couch co-op from start to finish, and it's probably one of my most fond gaming memories.

29. The entire Worms series
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05SbgPklysM

Closing out this tier is one that's extremely difficult to rank, in part because I really didn't feel like breaking them all up individually because there are so many of them. Also, breaking them up would break my 21st century only rule, because technically the Worms games go back into the 90s. I wouldn't feel right not including the pre-2000s ones either, because Worms Armageddon (from 1999) was my favorite in the series. In fact, for a long time I would've included Worms Armageddon in my top 5 games of all time. Another favorite gaming memory, as a teen I would legitimately pull all-nighters, pigging out on pizzas and playing battle after battle after battle of worms trying to kill each other with silly weapons. The games just hold so much distinct personality. More games should have the option to unlock voice packs for the characters or to assign silly names to every individual fighter you use. Many of the games follow similar gameplay structures, only with slightly new mechanics or themes or features. While Armageddon got by far the most gametime from me, I also want to shout out Worms Forts: Under Siege which took on a 3D tower-defense structure and is the most underrated game in the series imo.

Worms is so fuckin good but I basically have to beg people to play it with me, lol

Love Firewatch. Particularly, the ending being brave enough to not just deliver a happy sappy conclusion. I know a lot of people hated this, but the whole message of Firewatch is dependent on it.

Worms Armageddon is pure genius. But there's also nothing indie about that series.

foolm0r0n posted...

Worms Armageddon is pure genius. But there's also nothing indie about that series.

I mean, they're kind of in a grey area, but Team 17 is pretty largely associated with indie gaming and most Worms games are released as low-priced digital games. I debated whether or not to include them but ultimately leaned toward them counting

They have like 400 employees. Theyre not indie today for sure. Probably not by the time WA came out either, but maybe at an earlier point they were

The "These Games Are Basically the Best of the Best, Even If They're Still Not Quite Top Tier For Me" Tier

28. Every Jackbox Party Pack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-fIR7agXtw

I was considering putting this in a full 10 slots, but then I figured I'd have to figure out how I rank the individual packs, and I really didn't want to do that, because every pack has highs and lows and it's very hard to compare the packs that way. So instead, here's my game ranking (combining games with multiple entries into one since they're basically the same game with some upgrades/new prompts):

1. Job Job
2. Quiplash
3. Mad Verse City
4. Blather Round
5. Bracketeering
6. Joke Boat
7. Tee K.O.
8. Fixy Text
9. You Don't Know Jack
10. Trivia Murder Party
11. Monster Seeking Monster
12. Nonsensory
13. Dodo Re Mi
14. Roomerang
15. Champ'd Up
16. Drawful
17. Word Spud (underrated imo)
18. Quixort
19. The Wheel of Enormous Proportions
20. Bidiots
21. Time Jinx
22. The Poll Mine
23. Survive The Internet
24. Earwax
25. Fibbage (my big unpopular opinion is that Fibbage is kinda boring, especially for how popular it is)
26. Talking Points
27. Patently Stupid
28. Hypnotorious
29. Weapons Drawn
30. Junktopia
31. Split the Room
32. Civic Doodle
33. The Devil and the Details
34. Push the Button
35. Fakin' It
36. Role Models
37. Bomb Corp
38. Lie Swatter
39. Zeeple Dome

27. The Case of the Golden Idol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCnsGq3D0oY

Whatever you'd call this very specific type of vaguely supernatural murder mystery game, I want more of them. The game is visually hideous, but intentionally so? Like it's well-made in how ugly it is, because characters are so memorable that when you see them appear in later chapters, you can immediately put together who they are, which puts you at a (much needed) head start as you start to put together the pieces of what is happening in any given scene that you're haphazardly thrown into. When I really think about it, what makes games like this so fascinating is that, in a way, they're the adult version of educational games you play as a kid. You are quite literally learning as you play, but instead of learning the alphabet or multiplication, you're learning the rules of the world you're in. This is a dark and fascinatingly complex story tied together with an equally fascinating system of problem solving and deduction.

26. Hypnospace Outlaw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb4Jul496QE

This game is way too dumb to be as much of a gut punch as it is. It's slightly nostalgic to an era of internet where the internet was just starting out, with absolutely ridiculous pre-Wordpress website creations. But there's a sort of sense of uneasiness to it, because it's not quite right. It's not a horror game by any stretch, but there's still something dark and every so slightly off behind everything here. It's another mystery solving game of sorts, but not in the way most mystery games are. You essentially take the role of an internet cop, censoring and demeriting websites for not following mostly arbitrary rules, from the more reasonable cyberbully and harassment to the more ridiculous deletion of children's drawings of copyrighted characters. You're free to explore on your own pace, learning the stories of various characters as their sites develop over time and you learn secrets about the creation of these version of the internet. What really cements Hypnospace Outlaw even more though is its ending, which I still think about years later.

Bonus ranking: Class of '09
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1jvXZ-Tqc4

I said the last bonus ranking would probably be the last, but I lied because this is one that can be pretty much finished in a day. Absolutely not my kind of game, but I kept seeing it being talked about on Twitter and Tiktok, so I figured I'd give it a try. It's a anime visual novel in the style of a dating sim, only you play as the girl getting annoyingly hit on by guys. But it's also extremely American in everything but it's design, with sharp writing and dark humor that sounds very weird coming from high school characters but is also really weirdly accurate to the types of conversations I remember hearing from when I was in high school. The game also needs probably 100 different content warnings on it, as it features subplots involving pedophile teachers, sexual assault and harrassment, drugs, white nationalists, teen suicide, school shootings and more. There's not much in the way of a "game" here; it's kind of a choose your own adventure with no more gameplay than occasionally choosing which way to respond once every few minutes. I guess that's normal for visual novels? Again, not really my kind of thing typically. It is very funny, even when it tries to be over-the-top edgy. It's also probably not something I'd recommend to people, and you can probably get just as much enjoyment from watching clips of it on Youtube as you would playing it.

I can't really rank this very high, I think just below Reus at #140

We've officially got 25 left, so here's the list so far:

26. Hypnospace Outlaw
27. The Case of the Golden Idol
28. Every Jackbox Party Pack
29. The Worms Series
30. Castle Crashers
31. Oxenfree
32. Firewatch
33. Golf Story
34. Night in the Woods
35. A Plague Tale: Innocence
36. Antichamber
37. Braid
38. Doki Doki Literature Club
39. Spiritfarer
40. Undertale
41. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
42. The Unfinished Swan
43. Abzu
44. Her Story
45. Kena: Bridge of Spirits
46. Stacking
47. Overcooked 2
48. Overcooked
49. Gang Beasts
50. Flower
51. Limbo
52. Nidhogg
53. Jazzpunk
54. From Dust
55. Deaths Door
56. Chants of Sennaar
57. Oxenfree II: Lost Signals
58. Storyteller
59. Thumper
60. Robot Unicorn Attack
61. Octodad
62. Concrete Genie
63. Hotline Miami
64. Broken Age
65. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout
66. Superhot
67. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
68. Little Nightmares II
69. Gris
70. The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories
71. Ultimate Chicken Horse
72. OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood
73. Unpacking
74. Stray
75. Chicory: A Colorful Tale
76. Norco
77. Viewfinder
78. Wattam
79. Cuphead
80. Moving Out
81. Subnautica
82. Untitled Goose Game
83. Tabletop Simulator
84. West of Loathing
85. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
86. Horace
87. Minecraft
88. Roundabout
89. Sonic Dreams Collection
90. Guacamelee!
91. A Way Out
92. Ghostrunner
93. OlliOlli World
94. Rocket League
95. Little Nightmares
96. Cult of the Lamb
97. What the Golf?
98. Bound
99. Super Meat Boy
100. Toem
101. Pentiment
102. Later Alligator
103. Baba Is You
104. Shank
105. VVVVVV
106. Maquette
107. Bit.Trip Presents Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien
108. Quadrilateral Cowboy
109. The Witness
110. The Beginners Guide
111. Telling Lies
112. Twelve Minutes
113. Superliminal
114. McPixel
115. Machinarium
116. The Looker
117. Entwined
118. Donut County
119. Cook, Serve, Delicious!
120. Tacoma
121. Little Inferno
122. Runner3
123. Psychonauts
124. Maneater
125. Outland
126. Monument Valley 1
127. Runbow
128. Hohokum
129. Brawlout
130. Super Time Force Ultra
131. Sound Shapes
132. Zen Pinball 2
133. Erica
134. Apotheon
135. Fez
136. Afterparty
137. That Dragon, Cancer
138. A Little to the Left
139. Reus
140. Class of '09
141. Plague Inc.
142. Crayon Physics Deluxe
143. Grow Home
144. The Cave
145. My Friend Pedro
146. Sportsfriends
147. Pony Island
148. Everybodys Gone to the Rapture
149. Cibele
150. Dungeons & Lesbians
151. Bastion
152. Monument Valley 2
153. If On a Winter's Night, Four Travelers
154. Coffee Talk
155. The Binding of Isaac
156. Rime
157. Pizza Tower
158. Mark of the Ninja
159. Skullgirls
160. We Happy Few
161. BattleBlock Theater
162. Tokyo Jungle
163. Florence
164. Abobos Big Adventure
165. Disc Jam
166. Sky: Children of the Light
167. House Party
168. Rubber Bandits
169. Kentucky Route Zero (Chapters 1 & 2)
170. Lost In Random
171. Hue
172. I Am Bread
173. Naughty Bear
174. TowerFall Ascension
175. Happy Wheels
176. Friday the 13th: The Game
177. Human: Fall Flat
178. Foul Play
179. This Is The Only Level
180. Burly Men At Sea
181. Virginia
182. World of Goo
183. Party Crashers
184. Deltarune Chapter 1
185. Sunset
186. Toribash
187. Stephens Sausage Roll
188. KickBeat
189. Tales from Space: About a Blob
190. Quantum Conundrum
191. Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit
192. Escape Plan
193. The Bridge
194. The Swapper
195. Dear Esther
196. Surgeon Simulator
197. Joe Danger
198. Angry Birds
199. here
200. Racing Bros
201. Goat Simulator
202. We Become What We Behold
203. Facade
204. Run Sausage Run!
205. Five Nights at Freddys
206. Interactive Buddy
207. Threes
208. Slender: The Eight Pages
209. KIDS
210. Cookie Clicker
211. Bounty Battle
212. Flappy Bird
213. Hello Neighbor
214. The Unknown City (Horror Begins Now..Episode 1)

Underrated ones:
Bidiots
Word Spud
Trivia Murder Party (even though everyone likes it, people rarely choose to play it)
Fibbage Enough About You
Push the Button

I have strong disagreements about your Jackbox ranking but at least we agree that Job Job fuckin rules.

Class of '09 is something I discovered on Steam the other day and I stared at the page for like 20 minutes trying to figure out if it's the kind of edgy I'd enjoy or, like, 4channer edgy.

Kenri posted...

Class of '09 is something I discovered on Steam the other day and I stared at the page for like 20 minutes trying to figure out if it's the kind of edgy I'd enjoy or, like, 4channer edgy.

it's like 4chan types of edgy subject matter but if it was actually well written and witty

25. The Sexy Brutale
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P5eEImRQv4

2017 was a packed year for indies, so much so that The Sexy Brutale, which I feel like would've shown off any other year, kinda went a little under the radar. As has been established by now, or I fuckin hope it has, I like murder mysteries. Especially supernatural murder mysteries. The Sexy Brutale follows a man stuck in a time loop at a masquerade party during which all of his friends die violently. By going through the typical time loop style of learning more and more during each cycle, you slowly figure out how to stop their deaths. Only, you don't, and that's part of what makes Sexy Brutale so good. You save them, and they give you their mask, providing you a new power to help the others, Mega Man style. But on the next loop, they're just going to die again, and you have to accept that and keep trying to save the others (who all act on set schedules at the same time). Fascinating and darkly funny (and then darkly sad) story.

24. Hades
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91t0ha9x0AE

I know Hades is probably pretty easily the #1 for a lot of people on this board, and I fully get it. Given how much I don't really care for roguelikes in general, the fact that Hades places this high for me should be evidence of just how great it is. I would legitimately be impressed by Hades even if it all took place in the House of Hades and this just just an Animal Crossing type where you meet the characters and make everything look nice, the voice acting and writing and visual design alone are that good. But then the real gameplay happens, and I think this is one of the few roguelikes I've played where every run really does feel different. NPCs will have different things to say to you, perhaps the most fascinating development being the relationships with Zagreus, Meg and her sisters, one (or more) of which always serves as the first bos of each run. Hades will have new comments seemingly with every single death, new gods will appear to you during your run to grant you boons, which drastically change the way the game is played.

23. Bugsnax
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-v1BxSETvI

Bugsnax has the best theme song of any video game made to date. I still remember watching the initial E3 reveal, and I think Bugsnax was really the big draw of the night. Watching the chats see the cutesy stawberry with googly eyes, then seeing some muppet-looking woman acting like Crocodile Dundee come and eat it alive, and then Kero Kero Bonito with what would be the catchiest song of the summer. Bugsnax is Pokemon Go if you could actually catch all the Pokemon, and also feed them to your friends. Bugsnax is an extremely silly, wholesome game, except when it's not and it's actually a deeply unsettling body horror game with terrifying implications and one of the most gruesome and traumatizing "bad endings" of any game I've played. Memorable characters, lovable creatures, deep lore, existential terror, talking hamburgers. It's the whole package.

Sexy Brutale is sooo good but I wish the last 1/4th of the game wasn't basically just a cutscene.

22. Celeste
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70d9irlxiB4

And another one I know is the #1 of at least a handful on this board. These ultrahard fast-paced platformers are usually fun for me at first but I often don't get a ton from them in the long run. Celeste is probably one of the best examples of a platformer than did not do that. I think part of it was the accessbility and difficulty options. Celeste is a very difficult game. Nobody would deny that Celeste is a very hard game. And yet, there are options to make the game pretty much as easy as you need it to be (and it didn't lower the experience of the game for anyone else! take notes, From Soft!). What's funny is that I never really ended up using those options; I think just knowing that I could lower the difficulty if I needed to left me more inspired to push through. It helps that the gameplay is very fun, the characters are extremely sweet, and this is pretty easily one of the best indie game soundtrack of all time. When you do finally reach the summit, it's a subtle moment, but extremely satisfying.

21. Inscryption
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN5GSIWIN1k

Inscryption is a card game and an escape room and also, in the loosest possible defintion, a roguelike. Until it's not. This game quite literally bleeds lore, and I constantly found myself wanting more and more and more from it. It's also a game that's very hard to talk about, beause there are so many moments that just left me slackjawed. I could play this card game endlessly, and thankfully there's a mod for that! Finding all the combos and bizarre beasts you could summon through questionable methods had me hooked even before I realized what I was in for.

Shout out to @masterplum for buying this game for me and several other B8ers as a holiday present two years ago; I might not have discovered it otherwise and that would've been a real shame given how incredible it is.

wait why is plum in purgatory

I got to the last level of Celeste, saw that it required me to go back and collect everything from previous levels, said "lol nope," and watched the level and ending on youtube.

That's funny because I clicked on plum just because I was like "wow I haven't heard from plum in forever now that I think about it" and then found out he was in purgatory and almost asked the same question before I got distracted by something else.

I love all five of those games and I'm pretty shocked none could crack the top 20!

Inscryption was a very special game, and the endless mod is fun. Part of me wishes it was just the endless portion, but that would be so discrediting to the entire experience

Anagram posted...

I got to the last level of Celeste, saw that it required me to go back and collect everything from previous levels, said "lol nope," and watched the level and ending on youtube.

I did that at the 2nd gate in chapter 9 but then found out you could skip it with a special technique so I did that to continue. Absolutely genius to put that in there.

The thing with Celeste is that it has a perfect difficulty curve.

You are always good enough to beat the next level in front of you. You just have to improve a little bit, from trying the level itself.

And you keep doing that, level by level, until one day you realize you are playing a platformer at a level of skill you thought belonged only to those people who play those crazy mario hacks. But it's you who are doing it.

Because the game just knows how to grab your hand and make you get there, should you be ready to make the effort.

I died 14k times in Celeste, 3k times in Level 9 alone, but I beat all 25 levels after 3 months of daily gameplay, and it made me feel so proud of it.

Also yeah it has a perfect story which meshes well with the gameplay concept above.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

The thing with Celeste is that it has a perfect difficulty curve.

You are always good enough to beat the next level in front of you. You just have to improve a little bit, from trying the level itself.

I only played the main story but I kinda disagree with this. I thought the hotel was way way harder than anything before or after it.

Man, I only played a couple of levels of Celeste but I did not find it to be a particularly difficult game. Guess I didn't play far enough lol.

Need to get back to that one.

Also, Bugsnax > Hades is such a Really JB opinion

My one criticism of Celeste is the strawberry that requires you to know about a secret in Super Mario Bros. 3 to unlock. Nothing else in the game suggests how to do it. Obviously I knew it, but that felt like it was not in the spirit of everything else in the game.

Kenri posted...

I only played the main story but I kinda disagree with this. I thought the hotel was way way harder than anything before or after it.

I agree on the "before", but I didn't feel like the levels after it got easier. They felt more doable because after all the struggling with the hotel, I had gotten more used to the game, but I still need to take my time to get used to each new mechanic, and died at least 100 times each level.

The same thing happened in 3B, which is considerably harder than the previous B sides (but 4B and 6B are harder, and 8B is a crime against humanity).

And then 3C is yet again a living hell, but once you can do that, you cruise through the C sides until you finally get to 7C (which is so horrible it convinced me to record myself beating it, something I had never done before in games).

Also what is cool is that in the B/C sides, the game starts teaching you moves that are normally reserved for speedrunners (based on animation cancelling), because it considers you good enough to start doing them. Before you know it, you are blasting through the level and making physics breaking jumps, because the game is now designed with those in mind.

This game just brands platforming skill on your skin, and keeps rising the difficulty every level, but no matter what, I never hit a level I didn't feel I could beat. I was always good enough, if I just tried a little harder. I think I will never be as good in a videogame as I got in Celeste, because no other game is as dedicated to making its player a platforming god as this one.

I never hit a level I couldn't beat but I did hit ones that took upwards of 1 hour to beat

That's why I compared it to Baba in another topic

foolm0r0n posted...

I never hit a level I couldn't beat but I did hit ones that took upwards of 1 hour to beat

That's why I compared it to Baba in another topic

Level 9 took me 3 weeks.

Another one whose last screen I recorded, because I wanted to keep the moment for posterity.

Johnbobb posted...

wait why is plum in purgatory

he advocated for genocide and the murder of one million people

HanOfTheNekos posted...

Bugsnax > Hades is such a Really JB opinion

You're not wrong

NFUN posted...

he advocated for genocide and the murder of one million people

Oh

NFUN posted...

he advocated for genocide and the murder of one million people

Well yeah but why did he get purg'd